


Perfect Places

by unforciablecure



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Danvers Sisters, Developing Relationship, Episode: s02e09 Supergirl Lives, F/F, First Time, Fluff, Maggie’s White Shirt™, Pool, Post-Episode: s02e08 Medusa, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-01 18:58:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 58,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11492646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unforciablecure/pseuds/unforciablecure
Summary: Maggie had shown up to her apartment, thrown her heart on the line (‘Life is too short… and we should be who we are, and we should kiss the girls that we wanna kiss, and I really just… I- I wanna kiss you’) and Alex knows from experience just how hard that is to do; to throw out your feelings and just…wait.





	1. Pool

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [Lorde's Perfect Places.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0DjcsK_-HY)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex reflects on her new relationship with Maggie while playing pool at the dive bar. Days later, Kara returns from Earth One.

She’s dating Maggie.                                          

Has been for the past week - one whole week _-_ and Alex hasn’t told Kara yet.

There’s good reason for that, though, because Kara is in another universe; another universe with some guy called Barry Allen and his good friend Cisco, and the "e" word may have been dropped at least once or twice (emergency).

At least, that’s what Kara’s text had said.

Alex doesn’t like to stew on the fact that her sister is currently alone in another universe because it’s a shot of insecurity and worry that erodes her mind with an endless rush of anxiety each time she closes her eyes and thinks.

_If anything happened to her…_

Alex shifts as she leans across the bar, flagging down another round of beers, her fingers playing with a crisp set of dollar bills in the palm of her hand. Maybe Kara could have chosen a more timely moment to travel to another universe because Alex has so much she wants to tell her sister - there’s a fresh tub of ice cream patiently situated in the second drawer of her freeze on pause for this overdue conversation - because she’s dating Maggie. Maggie Sawyer who is racking the next set of pool balls as Alex awaits a fresh round of beers against the backdrop of _Spirit In The Sky_  echoing out from the jukebox.

It’s been a week since the knock at her door and the extended offering of pizza and a six pack of beer - the prelude to a confession - and kissing, _lots_ of kissing. Alex had swayed, had almost been knocked from her feet, both in disbelief and in awe _,_ because Maggie likes her - likes her back - and she’s happy to confirm that Maggie’s lips are as soft and plump as daydreamed about in colourful interludes (Alex had thought about that a lot).

Alex breathes out a contented sigh as she searches her mind - her memories - for the last time she ever felt this happy. Her search comes up empty because the time she’s searching for ceases to exist and Alex remains unsure if that hangs as an overall positive or a negative. After thinking it over, Alex leans towards positive because everything feels unapologetically right, like it just… fits. Alex’s skin feels awash with a glow, a warmth, that may or may not have settled into place after Maggie had brushed against her side just as she was about to play her second or third shot in on the very first game of the night. Her cue had jolted - displacing a stripe instead of a solid - and Alex had moved up from the table, whirling around to meet Maggie’s gaze before hearing an unconvincingly uttered _'"oo_ _ps_."

" _Guess that’s two shots for me?"_ Maggie had said, tilting her head as Alex had narrowed her eyes. It was sabotage to its very finest point and Alex knows she should have been annoyed about the momentarily relapse in the game but instead she found herself the very personification of the opposite.

Maggie had smirked, her cheeks punctuated by a perfect set of dimples and Alex had fallen exactly in that moment. She knows she should have expected it - foreseen it before it happened - because her girlfriend had been losing and whenever Maggie was on a downward spiral, she always upped the so-called methods of distraction. A brush of bodies here, a popped button there, the lingering touches. One week in and, already, Alex knew them all. They had been easy to deduce because Alex had been pulled into said methods on more than one occasion and she likes them, enjoys the heat that the calculated touches shoot across her skin, the spark of arousal that almost always makes her want to throw the game and tug Maggie in and never let go. It’s a complete rush. An endless tumble laced with adrenaline and charge and Alex gives herself over to it in the same regard every time; free falling.

The beers arrive cold and fresh and Alex grasps them, tossing down the dollar notes before twirling around to join Maggie back at the pool table in the far corner. There’s a crowd of aliens deep in conversation as she moves across the floor and Alex doesn’t think twice of how their skin is a shade of deep sea blue or how one of them has a horn as an eye.

The bar is unusually quiet for Monday night. Alex has grown to have a fondness for the place in all its rustic meets modern chic, all thanks to her girlfriend with whom her gaze gravitates to. As she nears closer, her eyes follow Maggie’s white shirt as it scrunches up as she leans across the table, lining up the triangle for break, dark and glossy hair swaying. Alex finds herself frozen on the spot, the hazy light shimmering down on her girlfriend to illuminate her eyes, her face, and Alex can’t quite believe that it’s taken her just over an hour to realise that the button up Maggie is wearing dips with a deep-v, exposing a pristine neckline and tan skin, so much tan skin.

Maggie’s eyes whip up to meet her own and Alex sways as she grips the beers in her hands a little too hard. The chill feels like it’s evaporating against the glowing warmth of her hands and she moves forward to pass Maggie a glass, her mouth a little dry, her hands clammy. Maggie smiles and greets her with a 'thanks' and Alex sips her beer, trying to blink away the distracting image of Maggie’s shirt hitting her apartment floor as she sways in thought. They’ve not quite reached that point yet but Alex feels it building, feels it inching closer, with every passing day and every connecting kiss.

And they kiss a lot. Like, a lot.

Ever since that initial night of pizza, beer and confessions, it’s become something of a nightly ritual.

They had kissed until Alex had stalled – as if suddenly remembering that she had to breathe - and Maggie had leaned back, all dimples, as she murmured on about a pizza that was getting cold while Alex’s eyes had glimmered at something that felt like it was meant to be. The conversation had flown freely through mouthfuls of pizza as an ambient buzz fizzled through the air, settling in motion, Alex’s mind twirling around as it gradually gained speed and eventually caught up.

Maggie had _kissed_ her and Alex really wants to know if it’s too late to count almost thirty as the age of her very first kiss because kissing had never felt like _that_  before. There had been a shiver and a spark which had stretched its way across her body – pulled over her like a second skin – and Alex had never felt as hot. The pyjamas she had been wearing on the night – the ones Maggie had deemed as cute – were the only layer withstanding between Alex and the complete submergence into a new kind of warmth. The heat was one thing but the fullness she had felt post-pizza was another because there was no way that the feeling was solely a side-effect of the fluffy filling crust, as great as  _Stilton Pizza_ could be. A heavy fluttering of butterflies had lain low in the pit of Alex’s stomach, making her sway and grow a little lightheaded.

Later that night, Maggie had smiled over the table, over half-empty bottles of beer, and Alex had felt her stomach flip flop, had felt her butterflies churn with _butterflies_. The heavy lurch had felt like a free fall into uncharted waters and Alex was excited to swim towards the gaining waves as quickly as she could, even with the ever shifting spike of nerves.

The pizza box situated between them in the centre of the table had been pushed aside and Alex had felt an unsteady rush - a jolt - when Maggie had moved up from her seat with an outstretched hand; an outstretched hand that Alex’s own was meant to take. Maggie had tugged her across a few steps, walking them both until they were in front of the fireplace with their backs to the couch. Alex’s gaze had been fixated on the soft hand clutching her own and the way that the feeling made her veins pulsate with an unsteady rush of adrenaline. She had grown momentarily distracted as Maggie whispered her name before freeing herself from the cloudy haze gathering in her eyes, then her girlfriend – _girlfriend?_ – pulled her closer and squeezed her hands.

 _"You okay?"_  Maggie had asked and Alex had tilted her head, pulling her gaze away from their entwined fingers with a smile. She was beyond okay - beyond great, actually - but her body had been numbed, numbed by a feeling she couldn’t quite place a finger on as much as Alex tried. Maggie’s words had been soft, even just the whispered utterance of her name was enough to fill Alex with an inclination that what they had just embarked upon was going to be special and yet, Maggie’s expression had flickered with initial apprehension.

_"Things didn’t move too fast?"_

Alex had shaken her head, had voiced a silent _no_ as Maggie pulled her closer, hands moving to find place on her hips and Alex had all but melted as her fingers rose to slide through the dark strands of Maggie's hair, similar to what she had found herself doing all but an hour ago after Maggie had kissed her. The realisation of the then current situation was almost too encompassing, almost too much.

Maggie had shown up to her apartment, thrown her heart on the line (" _Life is too short… and we should be who we are, and we should kiss the girls that we wanna kiss, and I really just… I- I wanna kiss you")_ and Alex knows from experience just how _hard_ that is to do; to cast out your feelings and just… _wait_.

" _I just-"_  Alex’s eyes had met Maggie’s and the shimmering gleam flickering back had made her lose all train of thought. Maggie’s eyes were calming, encouraging. Alex could be honest, could say whatever she wanted to say. Weighty words, quiet words. Mumbled words, honest words, so Alex had found herself almost bashful, cheeks reddening with a hint of embarrassment as a grin tugged away at the edge of her lips. It was almost automatic - almost static in its emergence - and Alex felt like she hadn’t stopped grinning ever since that night.

_"I can’t believe this is happening."_

The admission had fallen from her lips with a heavy heart. Alex, for the most part, was still in disbelief. If it weren’t for the piercing eyes which had reflected back on her, she might have been pinching her arm, trying to jolt herself awake from something which had felt almost too good to be reality. Maggie’s following grin had knocked Alex off balance, especially when the threaded grip on her hand had faltered and, in the next blink of an eye, Maggie had inched closer and was cupping her face, now close enough that her breath was falling in steady paces across her lips, both cool and distracting.

_"Believe it, Danvers."_

The soft, slow meeting of lips was the only sound which had echoed around her apartment. Alex had swayed against the connection, her hands falling to wrap around Maggie's waist - _Maggie's waist_ \- and Alex’s fingers had scaled across new and untouched territory as her heart hammered like a steady throb and punch in her chest. She had been proud of herself for doing something seemingly right because in the following seconds, Maggie had tilted her head and kissed her from another angle. Then there was a flick of tongue - Maggie's tongue - on her own tongue and Alex’s mind had pretty much short circuited as it arrived at whatever the mind version of the blue screen of death was.

Everything had been soft and slow, patient, spurring Alex on as she relaxed into Maggie's frame. The kiss slowed, sped up, and then slowed. Alex had grown a little dizzy as her heart kicked and throbbed unevenly in her chest. She envisioned Maggie as her very own defibrillator because she was pretty sure that she had just been brought back to life after being dead for twenty eight years. Kissing had never felt like _that_ before.

Maggie's fingers threaded through strands of auburn hair as she eased back to snatch some air, eyes opening to watch as Alex mirrored the same and her face had softened with a grin. Alex had felt a spike of heat collide with her body, reflecting the same shimmering smile deep in the brown pools of her eyes. There was a faint hint that their make out session wasn't completely over so Alex hadn’t been all that surprised when she had felt a hand easing her back and she was falling down onto the softness of her couch almost gracefully.

They kissed again, gentle, Alex's hands wrapping loosely around Maggie's shoulders as she fell down into her in a position which was almost - but not quite - straddling (Alex wasn’t sure she could have handled that progression quite so soon) and the kiss deepened with a twist of Maggie’s head. Alex felt herself sway, gently moaning, as Maggie's fingers trailed pathways down and across her jaw, dancing as they inched across the warm skin on her face, before settling as they threaded through her hair. The reaction had felt intimate, beyond intimate, and Alex was pretty sure that for those following minutes, she had left her own body behind, lost to getting lost in everything Maggie. The feeling had spiked when she felt the burning warmth shoot down past her navel as something unfamiliar pulsated towards her centre. She didn’t get a second to question before Maggie had shifted back; inching down from her mouth to press her lips to her neck and that metaphorical blue screen of death from earlier? Yeah, it had returned. Alex’s following moan had been involuntary and normally she would have been extremely self-conscious of something so naked and overtly intimate but Maggie had been quick to follow up the attack on her neck with a swipe of her tongue; her cooling and very smooth tongue, and all bashfulness had dimmed to pleasure.

(In retrospect maybe Alex could have accepted the offer of full on straddling because Maggie’s tongue had glided across her neck as soft lips pressed down against where they had just kissed mere seconds before and all Alex’s thoughts of self-consciousness and nervousness had instantly dispersed in one freewheeling motion)

Alex feels her skin shiver and speckle with goosebumps, feels the black and white daydream fall away into a bright patch of colour, as she blinks at her girlfriend standing before her in the present. She knows there’s still a small patch of crimson of what had transpired to be her very first hickey and that statement in itself is kind of mind blowing. She has a girlfriend. A hot, cop girlfriend whose lips have marked her neck in barely a week of dating and Alex flutters with the overpowering urge to return the same, each time she glances at the perfect and tan neckline Maggie displays on an almost offensive basis. Hickeys and Maggie Sawyer? That was very much a thing and Alex was going to return the favour. Maggie just didn’t know it. Yet.

Alex sways, drinking another mouthful of beer as Maggie chalks her cue. Pool has grown to be their thing and they enjoy it. They’ve been playing a lot of games lately, on average three a night, and now Alex is buzzed enough from the beer to admit that her girlfriend's technique is improving. Well, Maggie had won the last game at least.

"Best outta three?" Maggie asks as she moves up from the table and Alex blinks as she grasps her beer a little tighter. It’s the Maggie Sawyer effect in full swing; the one which falls into place every time her girlfriend smiles and grins or the conjoined double threat of the half-smile/half-grin which Alex swears could probably come close to proposing and gaining world peace.

Alex scrunches her face, fakes a half-pout and Maggie shoots her a half serious smirk in return. Automatically, Alex feels the familiar kick of butterflies, her expression numbing at the fledgling feeling because Maggie in that shirt is a crime; Maggie with those dimples, the white shirt _and_ the exposed skin is a crime. Alex sips her beer as she tries to drink back some of her bravado, letting her eyes seep into the attractiveness and she finds herself transfixed. Her girlfriend is very easy on the eyes.

"Loser buys next round?" Alex offers, distracted.

"Loser buys _all_ rounds." Maggie corrects, with bemusement.

They’ve been here before - a few times - even prior to dating, even before Maggie got dumped by the ex; bantering and flirting over the pool table. Maggie is confidence and swagger in a leather jacket but Alex? Alex is too. She knows when to tilt her head, knows the exact moment when to exaggerate certain words, revelling in the way Maggie’s face flickers with surprise and an unvoiced _you really went there, Danvers_ and it’s beyond amazing. At least, Alex likes to think so.

Alex takes the bait and bites like she does every time. "You _sure_ you wanna go there?"

"I won last round, didn’t I?" Maggie murmurs with a confident shrug of her shoulders. She likes it when they get competitive.

"You won on a _technicality_." Alex reminds her. "Huge difference."

"You don’t discriminate on a win. It’s not my fault you got distracted."

Alex gives her a look that says much the opposite because her girlfriend knows exactly what she’s doing. Didn’t she always? Alex breathes out a satisfied sigh, feeling warm and high spirited. The song in the background has changed now to something she recognises - an overplayed Christmas song - even over the lose chatter echoing around the bar. It feels strange that it’s December because Thanksgiving had passed by in – what had felt like - one blink of a beer tainted eye. Alex’s attention, however, is not on the singalong words of _we wish it could be Christmas every day_ ; it’s on the shimmering features of her girlfriend.

Maggie shrugs her shoulders, loosely in admission because; yes she had known exactly what she had been doing. Methods of distraction or The Maggie Sawyer effect, Alex surmised that they were the same thing.

"Okay, _maybe_ we can agree to disagree." Maggie admits, briefly glancing down, "but there’s still time for you to claw back the game."

It sounds like charity. Alex places her beer down on the ledge and picks up her cue. Her attention had been sparked, to say the least. " _I’m_ breaking."

Maggie smiles, all teeth and dimples and Alex realises that she never stood a chance. "Yeah? Try _not_ to pot the black this time."

" _Funny_ , Sawyer." Alex hums with a grin. "I’ll try."

 

* * *

 

Kara returns two days later.

Alex’s eyes first collide with her sister as she plummets through her apartment door with a clatter, all impatience and a creased expression. Kara’s apartment is a little messy post-disappearance. Her _Supergirl_ costume and boots sit carelessly abandoned mid-way across the floor and Alex has to step over them to reach her sister who is now very much civilian Kara Danvers.

" _Kara."_

Alex runs towards her sister, throws her arms around Kara and envelopes her in the tightest hug. "Alex." Kara murmurs over her shoulder, surprised by her sister’s strength. "I missed you."

"I missed _you."_ Alex says, squeezing tighter, her voice hanging heavy with emotion. "Never do that again, okay? Never leave me without saying goodbye, _properly_. Or at least, if you do, take me with you next time."

"I’m sorry. Everything with Barry… It all just happened so fast."

Alex holds Kara tighter. Her voice is muffled over her sister’s shoulder, hair swaying. "You scared me."

"I didn’t mean to.’ Kara assures, apologetically, with a sigh. Her words are heavy, worn down. Her voice sounds like it’s experienced the challenges of another world. "I would never, Alex."

They hug until Alex let’s go, sniffles with the edging hint of tears and she looks at her sister with a growing smile, hands touching her sides. It’s a happy reunion not a sad one. "You have to tell me everything." she says, after a moment.

Kara nods, pushes her glasses up from the crook of her nose and begins with "so I owed Barry a favour."

The tub of ice cream which Alex had reserved for post-invasion still sits in the second drawer of the freeze back in her apartment but she knows they’ll soon find a sister night to crack it open. Instead of ice cream, Alex orders in Chinese and they sit on Kara’s couch murmuring away the moments when they aren’t eating with anecdotes.

Kara tells Alex about Barry Allen, about The Flash, and some grumpy guy called Oliver who Kara tells Alex she wouldn’t like at all ("I guess he’s kinda like _Robin Hood_ \- minus the charm - but ten times the moodiness. He’s really kind of a _… jerk."_ ). Murmurs on about a white canary ("I think she, uh, _hit_ on me?") and how different things are on the other earth ("They voted for the _other_ guy _,_ Alex.").

When Kara finishes her food, she pushes aside the chopsticks and paper box and relaxes back into the couch, glancing around her apartment. It feels like she’s been away much longer than a week. " _So_ , enough about me…" Kara begins, eyes flickering up to meet Alex’s as she watches her sister finish the remainder of her noodles. "I’ve been gone for over a week, Alex. A _week!_ What have I missed?"

Alex averts her gaze as she feels a spark of crimson dance and colour across her face. She finds herself distracted, playing with her food as she glances down. "Oh, you know, _not much."_

Kara’s eyes widen and her lips part, expectantly.

Alex feels her cheeks grow darker in the silence as she flicks her eyes up to meet Kara’s gaze and the wordless question of ' _not much?'_

" _What?’"_ Alex blurts.

Kara fidgets as she grins, pulling a pillow in towards her chest. She doesn’t want to prod Alex - not too much at least - but the bashfulness her sister bears is too encompassing, too good, so she waves away her resistance and lightly laughs.

" _Not much_ , Alex… you’re blushing!"

" _Am not."_  Alex says, pointedly, ignoring the way the glow which colours her face seemingly doubles in her protest. She plays with her chopsticks as she avoids Kara’s gaze for the second time, trying not to show how lovesick she truly feels.

"You _are!_ Something has happened." Kara’s eyes narrow but her grin remains in place. "Something with… _Maggie?"_

Alex almost screeches, her voice vibrating with enthusiasm in the depths of her throat. She hasn’t told anyone and she’s been dating Maggie for over a week – over a week - and it’s very much a secret she has been itching to tell Kara ever since that fateful knock at her apartment door.

Alex still manages to downplay it, though, of course.

"There may have been… some developments."

 _"Alex!’"_ Kara chastises, playful.

"I know." Alex takes a deep breath, tries to steady herself as she glances down. "I know. _"_  she repeats, wide eyed and nervous as she manages to murmur out the words "we’re dating" followed up by the clarification of "I’m dating Maggie." without pause _._

Kara’s eyes fly wide. "You _are?"_

Alex nods, pushing aside the chopsticks and paper box. She finally meets her sister’s gaze with a nervous and apprehensive smile followed up by a complimentary nervous half laugh. Alex bites her bottom lip, clutching her arms.

"Well… _say something."_

Kara almost leaps from the couch with enthusiasm, the pillow she had been gripping falling to the floor in her haste. "I’m so happy for you!"

"You’re not just saying that, are you?" Alex begins. ‘I mean you-"

"Are you _kidding_ , Alex? I’m overjoyed for you! You deserve someone who makes you happy. Now I need to hear everything. Well, not _everything_ everything but how did it happen, what did Maggie say..?"

So Alex tells Kara about the night she left, about the knock at her door and Maggie’s confession and the kiss ("Maggie’s lips are soft, Kara. _So_ soft.") and Kara’s smile grows as she listens to her sister enthusiastically recapping the night with wide eyes and a tugging smile.

When Alex finishes, she’s a little out of breath and her eyes do a double take as Kara’s eyes gaze at her knowingly. She glances down, embarrassed, a heat overpowering her cheeks, as she realises just how long she’s been talking about Maggie and her self-diagnosed giant enormous crush you can probably see from space.

Kara had said practically nothing, had only hummed and nodded in all the right places as she continued. Alex’s teeth grind together as a neutral, half smile crosses her expression. Kara has been _too_  quiet and Alex feels an uncomfortable itch zigzag its way across her skin. She speaks through her teeth, tries to numb the anxiety which automatically snakes its way into her voice at her sister’s apparent unease.

" _What_ \- what is it?"

"It’s just I’ve… I’ve never seen you like this before." Kara begins, voice small, and Alex panics because Kara is using her confessions voice, the one she normally reserves for whenever she feels disappointed.

Alex tucks a lose wave of hair behind her ear as a pause of silence snakes its way in between them. "What do you mean?" she asks, apprehensive.

"You’re… _blushing_ , Alex!" Kara bursts suddenly and Alex sighs because there’s a recognisable soft grin etching its way onto her sister’s face. "It’s just- it’s really nice to see."

"It feels nice." Alex breathes, sighing again with relief. Kara wasn’t disappointed, Kara was proud and Alex is so, so grateful to have a sister who is the literal definition of patience and understanding even absent from the House of El emblem emblazoned on her chest.

"I don’t think I’ve ever seen you _blush_ before. I’ll need to have a word with Maggie." Alex laughs at the thought as Kara’s smile grows wider.

It’s almost full circle as they sit on Kara’s couch, a slight similarity to the conversation they had shared when Alex had come out. That particular day feels like a blur now, a scary and beautiful blur. Alex had gushed about Maggie, had told Kara how beautiful she is as they talked on this very couch and now, Maggie is her girlfriend. They’re dating. Alex breathes out. She feels a calmness spring within herself, twisting and winding, growing like a flower from the inside of her soul, bringing so much renewed positivity to her. She found Maggie but Maggie really found herself, peeled back the layers Alex had smoothed over with many facades, and now she’s just… Alex. The _real_ Alex. 

"I’ve never felt this much like me before which definitely makes sense to me now because… well, now I _know_ the reason why I never did. Why I never felt… happy. Why I never was."

"You found yourself, Alex." Kara encourages. "Do nothing _but_ embrace it. Embrace who you are because I am so proud of you."

There’s a small part of Alex which whispers a doubtful  _you are?_ in return and the words feel heavy as they lodge themselves in the back of her throat. She’s always been insecure, has always doubted the validity of her feelings, has always looked to Kara for reassurance in everything from colleges to career paths (even that lost gap year Alex can only remember by an occasional crossing pain in her forehead) and this is no different.

"I’m _proud_ of you." Kara tells her again, eyes and words firm. She shifts, scoots closer and pulls Alex in for a hug. "Don’t you ever doubt that, Alex." Kara says over her shoulder, reinforcing her words with a loving squeeze. "Ever."

"I won’t." Alex murmurs, over Kara’s shoulder as they embrace. "It’s just… this past week has been a blur and without you, I was- I was going a little crazy, you know?" Alex admits, eyes widening. "Maggie sensed it right from the start that something was up and you know what I told her? I said you were on vacation and she sat with me at the bar; listened to me ramble on for about two hours as I went on and on about how much I missed you."

"She did?"

Alex nods in affirmation over her shoulder.

"Maggie sounds understanding." Kara says, with a smile.

Alex breathes deep as they pull apart and she gazes at Kara. "Yeah, she- she is."

"So when am I going to be officially introduced?" Kara asks, shuffling back with a look that can only be described as wide eyed impatience. "We should hang out or have dinner."

"I’d like that." Alex says, smiling as she feels a kindness touch her heart. "Thanks, Kara."


	2. Surprises in December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie crosses paths with Alex while investigating a crime scene. The following day, Alex spends time at Maggie's apartment as she helps decorate her apartment for Christmas and _maybe_ there's some mistletoe.

Maggie Sawyer is having a bad day.

A  _very_ bad day.

The kind where you wake up filled with blind optimism - the internal repeated words to yourself that the day ahead is going to be a good one - but by the time you’ve vacated your apartment, the skies have opened up, you've already put one foot deep in a puddle  _and_  spilled your coffee over yourself, all within one non-stop time frame of ten minutes. To add to the list, you haven't seen your girlfriend in two days and the last minute overtime you signed yourself up for has placed a momentary pause on your relationship and it  _sucks_.

Then there's the chatter of the bullpen and the insistent ringing of phones that greets you when you power through the precinct doors with flagging optimism, the kind that’s wearing thin on Maggie on a day like today. The noise was doing nothing but elevating the growing headache she could feel bubbling across her forehead. She hadn’t slept well last night and not even Alex's text wishing her a good morning could smooth out the crease Maggie could feel spreading across her face. Nine days into December and her mood was at an all-time low. Not even the sporadic tinsel draped around the bullpen or the red snow globe which had somehow snaked its way onto her desk (Maggie had nothing to do with it, she swears) could shake a smile from her this morning.

Her partner McConnell makes fun of her because he’s McConnell and that’s just what he does. He catches sight of Maggie’s frown and quips something about 'being in the bad books with the girlfriend' and if looks could kill, he’d be dead.

They’re assigned a fresh case which takes them to a crime scene by the docks; a warehouse fresh and sticky with alien goo and - what looks like - the workings of a burglary. It’s nothing too exciting for a Friday morning so Maggie finds herself surprised when her eyes catch sight of a badge being flashed by the cordon, a couple of metres away, as Alex sneaks down underneath a long strand of  _do not cross_ tape. There’s an air of familiarity as Alex places her first steps on this side of the barricade, sliding into the scene. The N.C.P.D’sscene.

Maggie moves up from her knees, tugs at the blue latex gloves she’s wearing and tries _not_  to blatantly check out her girlfriend as she strides confidently towards her. Alex is dressed in black; tight jeans and a blazer over a shirt, and Maggie finds herself shifting, her windbreaker rippling in the blowing wind because Alex has caught her looking and she’s smirking.

"Agent Danvers." Maggie greets, inwardly as she snaps the gloves against her hand, bravado falling confidently into place. There’s a faint trace of a smile, however, all formality aside. Maggie would never admit it but she’s beyond curious as to why this particular case has caught the attention of the DEO. Maggie tilts her head, interested. "Didn’t expect to see the feds here."

"Well, you know us, we’re all the same." Maggie fails to stop a grin from enveloping her face as Alex steps closer, her voice lowering. Whenever they cross paths at work, they always find themselves toeing the line with echoes reminiscent of their first meeting. Maggie isn’t going to pretend that she doesn’t enjoy the tension and spark it shoots in full procession through out her body as Alex takes a step closer. It kept things fresh, to say the least.

"It’s nice to see you, Detective Sawyer. _"_

Maggie thinks that her day just got a whole lot better. She blinks, deciding to play along with the formality – albeit, formal flirtation - and tilts her head, ponytail swaying. She’s suddenly no longer bitter about the brown coffee stain corrupting her jeans or the puddle her step had fallen in towards without much thought. The rain had even stopped.

"Keepin’ things professional, I like it." Maggie comments, glancing away briefly. "What can I do for you, Danvers? Didn’t think the DEO would be interested in knock off  _Nickelodeon_ gunge."

Alex’s expression crosses with seriousness, although there's a faint trace of a smile. "We know who is behind this."

Maggie looks at Alex with expectant eyes, pursing her lips. "You care to share?"

"It’s more than just a break in." Alex tells Maggie in her  _work_ voice, eyes flickering around the scene. Maggie isn’t turned on. She isn’t. Alex’s eyes return to her own as she offers; "Maybe we can walk and talk?"

Maggie nods. They veer off to the left, heading down towards the slope of a concrete pier and into the oncoming wind and the cold, rippling water of the docks. She listens as Alex explains that the alien is part of the registry, that he’s been on their watch list for a while now and that basically – in no fewer words - the DEO messed up. When they reach the very edge of the pier, Alex grows quiet and Maggie glances around, meeting her piercing gaze with a soft smile.

"I know it’s only been two days…" Alex begins, glancing down and it’s only then when Maggie realises that Alex’s voice is tinged with embarrassment and her work voice has diminished to be joyfully replaced with her soft, recognisable,  _Alex_  voice. ‘…but I’ve really missed you’

"Believe me; I’m never signing up for o.t again." Maggie murmurs, rubbing her temples.

Working overtime into the night was the worst. Middle of the night stake outs – in the overcast, falling rain - were the worst, especially when they came up empty like this op’s surveillance had so it had felt like a wasted night. That wasn’t even bringing to the table the carry out coffee Maggie had grabbed from a late night vendor, the one which had turned out to be nothing but “bland hot water”. The coffee had been the final straw for Maggie and she had returned home to her apartment in the early hours of the morning a little crankier than usual.

"I must say, this is a surprise." Maggie’s lips part, wistful, and she tilts her head, dimples creasing into place. "Nothing screams romance like alien gloop at a crime scene."

"We  _met_  at a crime scene." Alex reminds her, amused. The situation feels warm and familiar. Where there was once threat to be found is now warm hearted respect and admiration. There’s no airport tarmac or airy threats of jurisdiction but there’s still the same edge and initial spark of flirtation.

A lot has happened since they met, Alex muses, shifting as she reaches out to touch Maggie’s arm. "How’s your morning been?"

"Let’s not go there." Maggie says, with a sigh, gaze shifting down to Alex’s touch. It feels warm and comforting after the morning she’s had. "But it has potential to get a whole lot better."

Alex feels herself grow giddy, feels a grin settle all too easily on her face at the possibility of a hook up; a make out session somewhere off grid during work.

"I have to go." Alex begins, biting her bottom lip, but everything about her expression screams that she wants to stay.

"Of course you do." rings the counter and Alex’s grin only doubles.

"And so do  _you"_

"Yeah, I  _do."_  Maggie breathes, stepping closer, her voice now close enough so that Alex can feel it against her skin. "But there’s always time for-"

"Sawyer!" a voice calls, all gruff and thick as it wedges its way in between the tension and the promise of her words. Maggie rolls her eyes at the moment ruined by her partner, ten or so metres away, and initially ignores the call, eyes rooted on Alex and Alex’s lipsand the way that her girlfriend’s eyes are flickering up and down, up and down from her lips. She doesn’t care if anyone sees them when Alex is gazing at her like that _._

"Found something!" the voice calls again, this time laced with irritation, and Maggie groans. She would not be buying McConnell afternoon coffee as promised in the car ride over.

Alex squeezes her arm, gently, smiling as she glances around, catching sight of more N.C.P.D bodies marching past. "It sounds like you’re needed."

"I’m always needed." echoes the dry reply and Alex half laughs because Maggie is frustrated. It’s interwoven between her eyes, stretched across her forehead and Alex thinks that the expression is maybe even cuter than the triple dimple she sporadically wins out of her girlfriend whenever she makes her laugh hard.

"You make it sound like that’s a problem." Alex murmurs, tilting her head as her eyes flicker down and across her girlfriend. It’s not a problem.

"Pool tonight?" Maggie asks, waving off her partner with a warning that she would be no longer than a minute. ‘You wanna come over to my place before we grab dinner?"

"Absolutely."

"Good." Maggie smiles as she turns away. "We’ll finish this later."

Alex automatically feels unsteady on her feet at the thought. " _Oh yeah?"_

Maggie turns around, smirking with the silent conformation of 'hell yeah' before she bids Alex goodbye with a very professional and extremely exaggerated "Agent Danvers."

 

* * *

 

Maggie Sawyer loves Christmas.  _Really_ loves Christmas.

It’s a fact that lands centrally in the piercing pools of Alex’s eyes – quite literally – in the form of flickering lights and a wreath which swings as Maggie greets her with a dimpled grin in the frame of her apartment door.

"You started without me?" Alex asks, teasingly, nodding to the swaying wreath before sneaking a look inside. Her eyes scan across the multiple strands of tinsel piled haphazardly across Maggie’s coffee table, over a mountainous pile of Christmas lights and towards a mini tree also scattered across the floor, making it look like Christmas threw up.

Maggie’s apartment is smaller than Alex’s is, is not open plan and her bedroom actually has a door (Maggie had joked about this once, receiving a playful eye roll and teasing shove in return. It was a feature of her apartment, she had told her girlfriend ("I have a door, Alex! Wanna borrow it?") It isn’t Alex’s first time in Maggie’s apartment – she’s been here before – it’s just that they always seem to spend most of their time in the confines of her own. Whenever Maggie comes over to Alex's apartment post-shift, all they do is make out. Alex has lost count of the spots in her apartment which have been tarnished by their make out sessions and laughs because they're genuinely running out of places where their mouths have yet to meet. The latest incident had been the refrigerator, which had rocked as Maggie surprised Alex by appearing behind her, one evening mid-week, as she had slid across the floor to retrieve them beers. Pushing Alex up against it, Maggie had laughed into her lips as Alex tried her very best not to drop the cold bottles she was grasping so - naturally - her girlfriend had viewed it as a challenge; Maggie continuing to alternate the angle and speed of the kiss (and _maybe_ Alex had dropped a bottle or two. Oops.)

"It’s 3pm on December tenth." Maggie tells her in reply, hand outstretching and Alex finds herself being tugged inside, the door closing behind her back with a soft click. "That’s  _ten_ days and fifteen hours into the festive month! But don’t worry, there’s a whole apartment to decorate." Maggie adds, whirling Alex around, hands roaming her sides as she pulls her in closer. Alex moves to close the gap between them, only for Maggie to pull her head back at the very last second before she gets a chance to. Alex is left momentarily confused, receiving only a dimpled smile in return. Wordlessly, Maggie eases Alex back a few steps, guiding her girlfriend with a light and gentle grip at her waist, until Alex’s back bumps against the solid wood of the apartment door, effectively trapping her against the door.

"You’re forgetting something." Maggie tells her, tilting her head, cutely, dimples doubling at the flirtatious warning. She nods her head, pointing upwards with a loose movement in her eyes, and Alex follows her girlfriend’s line of sight, legs almost giving out at what they uncover because – hanging above the frame of the door - there’s a small gathering of green leaves.

Alex thinks it really is Christmas, now, because it’s mistletoe.

"You don’t wanna break tradition, do you?" Maggie asks, her tone one of amused exaggerated seriousness, as Alex’s gaze gravitates back to her own from the leaves hanging an inch or two above the door frame. Her girlfriend’s following smile spreads across her face in growing warmth and Maggie recognises the glint in Alex’s eyes as excitement. Mistletoe is yet another milestone in their relationship.

"I don’t think you would forgive me if I did."

Maggie inches closer, her breath now creating cool puffs of air across her chin, and Alex tries to steady herself against the tight rigidness of the door, suddenly thankful for the support as her hands find place on her girlfriend’s hips.

Maggie’s voice vibrates against warm skin as she speaks. "You've got that right, Danvers." Alex’s eyes flutter as they close, her own breath growing short and stunted as Maggie steals it from the room.

"My place." Maggie tells her, airily and flirtatious. "My rules."

Alex swallows, swaying, her eyes still closed. "I wouldn’t wanna argue with the rules."

If her eyes were open she would have caught sight of the fire which sparks flames in the centre of her girlfriend’s pupils, growing in dilation at the way the flowing words are having their desired effect. Maggie can feel a spreading itch swirl its way across her skin and she wets her lips with a swipe of her tongue before she pushes closer, swallowing down a moan as their mouths meet.

It’s soft - not rushed and not hard - just soft as Maggie’s hands slide upwards from Alex’s waist, scaling up her sides as they gravitate towards the nape of her neck. Alex feels her own hands clawing out, reaching for Maggie in ways she’s not sure she has fully grasped a hold of as they kiss and kiss and kiss. Maggie tastes faintly of scotch and Alex closes the gap between them again, feels herself getting lost in the gentle collision of soft lips as her hands grip the edge of her girlfriend’s grey henley. Maggie is completely pressed against her, her body firm and warm as it wedges Alex in against the apartment door and the feeling fills Alex with the sudden urge to kiss her girlfriend harder.

So, she does.

It takes Maggie by surprise at first before surprise morphs into strangled whines and the tainted hint of scotch stained kisses only increase with a flick of tongue. Maggie breathes hard as Alex kisses her from another angle, swirling her tongue against her own in a way which is too much for the  _hey come over and help me fix up decorations_ thing they had planned at the very beginning of the week. It was supposed to be innocent, not the  _take me against the door_  scenario they’ve enthusiastically stumbled into but Maggie? Maggie is completely okay with the development. She manages to pry her mouth away from Alex’s just in time to catch a breath, pressing their foreheads together.

"If we keep this up, my apartment isn’t going to go anywhere…" Maggie says, inwardly, against Alex’s cheek, her girlfriend’s breath wavering with gentle wisps of air against her lips.

"You started it." Alex replies in a tone which is more 'let’s continue'than accusatory.

"The  _mistletoe_ started it, not me"

"You know what I think?" Alex begins and Maggie feels a sudden spike of arousal at the way she remains out of breath but manages to talk her way through it. True skill. "I think the mistletoe was just another reason for you to kiss me."

Alex gets a quick retort and it surprises her.

"Would you be complaining if it was?"

Were they really arguing over this?

"So you admitit?" Alex asks, kissing Maggie faint and gentle, lingering. Normally, her girlfriend always made an effort to string along bets, wagers and - what Maggie likes to term as - “light, conversational trolling”. She didn’t usually give in that easily.

"There’s…" Maggie’s voices trails off as she searches for the word. "…plausible deniability."

It’s official. They’re dorks.

Alex snorts. " _Deniability?_ You knew exactly what you were doing when you pushed me up against this door." Alex feels Maggie’s cheeks crease into a grin against her and, finally, she wins out an admission (and the elusive third dimple).

"Yeah, I did."

"Okay but seriously _,_  I wanna know. How did you get up there?" Alex asks as Maggie leans back, eyes flickering open to catch sight of what exactly Alex was making reference to. She gazes at her girlfriend who nods to the mistletoe overhanging the centre of the door or - more specifically – to the  _height_ in which it had been placed.

"You got a stepladder I don’t know about or something?" Alex asks seriously.

" _Another_  short joke." Maggie snarks, brow furrowing as she tries her very best to dampen her grin. "You know, I could arrest you for jokes against those of us of a smaller kind. I’ve heard it’s a crime. You could do time."

Alex snorts. "Pfft,  _sure."_

Maggie’s expression flickers with curiosity and she decides to play along. "My cuffs are right over there."

Alex feels a heat crisscross her skin at the threat – solid with flirtation - and a slight twitch spikes throughout her as she glances over Maggie’s shoulder, her gaze colliding with the glock – on safety - and handcuffs sitting on the kitchen counter, adjacent to Maggie’s department badge. The threat, it seemed, was true in its entirety. It wasn’t just Maggie’s usual bravado shining through. It wasn’t an exaggeration; the essentials were sitting abandoned just  _over there_.

"You wouldn’t." Alex blurts, hollow, as her gaze falls back on her girlfriend.

Maggie taunts her with a "try me" and Alex bites her bottom lip. The particular scenario which has flickered into her mind is one which is going to take a while to leave, and if Alex is being honest, maybe she doesn’t want it to. Her girlfriend is a detective and on the numerous occasions Alex has seen her working with her own eyes have been nothing but a turn on. There was just something about the way Maggie would wear her badge – pinned tight and shiny – against her waist, the swagger she always exudes with the glock and handcuffs attached to her waist, a heady combination of cop accessories. Alex didn’t want to drool – god no – but she had, hell, she did and Maggie, Maggie didn’t make it easy on her, at all.

Alex swallows her thoughts down, blinking them away with a choked out half-laugh. Maybe they would get around to that particular fantasy someday.

"You want a drink?" Maggie asks, suddenly, her touch on Alex moving away and Alex nods, her mind still rooted on what was said before. "It’s festive tradition to drink scotch pre-decorations." Maggie tells her, as if it was written in black and white, the law.  "So if you had of told me 'no' then maybe I would have arrested you."

They don’t start decorating until half an hour later and find themselves sitting on the crème rug of the living room floor, backs resting against the bottom edge of Maggie’s couch, exactly twenty minutes after starting out.

Alex feels a little loose, now, with the free flowing scotch and Maggie mirrors her tipsiness with a gleam in her eyes, hands rummaging through a heavily worn and creased cardboard box that’s overflowing with decorations and tinsel.

They’ve only just started on the tree when Alex kick starts a conversation about festive traditions.

"Kara is great at decorating." Alex murmurs, absentmindedly. "She always just-" and then Alex stops, cuts herself off, blinking as she manages to catch herself from trailing out the following words of "flies up and pulls the tree together". Decorating with Kara by nature is great. She can fly, can hover over the Christmas tree like a genuine angel – sans halo – and that wasn’t even taking into consideration placing dangling Christmas lights across the high ceiling of her apartment. Who needs ladders when you have  _Supergirl_?

But Maggie - Maggie at this exact moment - doesn’t knowabout Kara, doesn’t realise that the two times that they’ve met haven’t solely been on a personal level; they’ve crossed paths beside  _do not cross_ cordon tape and on more than one occasion. Alex has only been there on a handful of those times – when Supergirl has colluded with the N.C.P.D - and she’s not too blindsided to miss the cold and sometimes irritated look Maggie shoots her sister when she’s decked out in her police windbreaker and work ponytail.

Alex catches herself before she confesses an admission she isn’t sure Maggie is ready for. Not yet, at least, so Alex’s expression creases into a smile, fingers wrapping loosely around her scotch glass as she prepares to take a drink.

"…knows the best place for decorations." Alex finishes, watching as her girlfriend’s eyes flicker, almost shimmering, with something which resembles... disbelief, like Maggie can actually see through the white lie. Alex feels bad for not telling her the truth but with each passing day, she feels the  _Kara is Supergirl_ conversation rearing ever closer. She knows they’re both on a collision course with the conversation because it had to happen. It was inevitable, especially after being officially introduced to one another – Kara as Kara Danvers not Kara Zor-el and Maggie Sawyer as Alex’s girlfriend – during the previous evening. The introductions had unfolded by accident, in the dive bar of all places, and somehow Alex had viewed the location as the perfect start. Kara was warm and open, and maybe a little protective, as she laughed away the formality of Maggie’s extended handshake, instead opting to throw her arms around her for a bear hug.

"We spent a whole day decorating her apartment last Christmas." Alex continues, hoping that she’s imagined the lingering pause between words, that Maggie’s eyes aren’t flickering with scepticism as her girlfriend sips a mouthful of scotch.

Maggie’s eyes are heavy as she heaves through a pile of tinsel, absentmindedly. "Must be great to have a sister." 

"It is." Alex murmurs, after a moment. "But Kara and I… we have- we have our moments, you know? But we’ve grown closer over the last couple of years." she pauses, eyes moving up from her glass to watch Maggie, who is staring into the bottom of her own. Her girlfriend’s attention is no longer on the box of tinsel. Alex shifts, holding her glass loosely. "It’s just you, right?" she asks, tentatively, clarifying the only child conversation they had shared a few weeks ago. "I was alone, too. I mean, until Kara. It definitely took some getting used to." To say the least.

"Just me." Maggie answers, her voice strained as she takes another drink. She gulps down the liquid, her voice a little dry and hoarse. Maggie had always found scotch to be the most effective spirit for washing away _those_ memories. It was apt; bitter and tangy. "It's probably better that way."

"Don’t say that." Alex says, pity in her eyes, in her  _voice,_ and she looks worried, equally horrified, that Maggie could even utter the words.

"Are you kidding? I wouldn’t wish Nebraska on anyone. It’s  _the_ worst."

"Your parents still live there, right?" Alex asks, curious, as Maggie nods, sipping another mouthful of scotch. The drink had never tasted as bitter. "Will you see them this holiday?"

Maggie gulps down another mouthful, wiping her mouth with a swipe of her hand as she places the glass down at her side on the wooden floor.

"Who?" she asks, genuine, her gaze finally meeting Alex’s.

Alex laughs lightly, eyes glinting. Her girlfriend was even adorable when she was distracted. "Your  _parents_ , silly."

"I don’t think so." Maggie murmurs, ignoring the way the words affect Alex. Her girlfriend looks a little confused, eyes narrowing as she drinks in the new information so Maggie decides to soften the blow with a half-truth and tells Alex that her parents are on vacation. She makes sure to omit the part that their “vacation _”_ is one from her life, though, and permanent.

Alex’s face falls. "That sucks."

"Trading up the brisk cold of Nebraska for the warm sun?" Maggie murmurs with rehearsed words. "Sure sounds like a win to me." 

It scares her sometimes, how easily she can find it within herself to lie, to divert the truth. Her parents are a sore spot, like the way in which a painful bruise still corrupts your skin weeks and weeks after the initial scuff has happened. Except, it wasn’t mere weeks ago for Maggie, it was years and ten times as painful; a strain of pain which a bruise could never come close to. Her upbringing is a grey area she hopes Alex will never shine a light on but Maggie pictures it now, sees Alex grasping her metaphorical flashlight and shining it bright because Alex is Alex. Maybe Maggie wouldn’t be able to hide the truth forever, just delay it.

"You’ll miss them." Alex asserts for Maggie to remain wordless in response, taking a long sip of her drink, the tangy taste of scotch washing across her mouth with fire as she swallows it down.

Maggie resumes her search for tinsel in the box, trying to distract herself away from the uncomfortable chill creeping its way across her skin. She’s tended to avoid the topic and conversation of family ever since they got together and in all honesty, Maggie thinks it’s for the better. It's always easy to steer the spotlight and conversation away from herself whenever it sporadically creeps up because Alex talks about Kara a lot and Maggie is more of a listener than a sharer.

"I know I would, if my dad was still here." Alex adds with a fallen expression.

"You must miss him." Maggie says, after a moment, words heavy.

" _Yeah."_  Alex breathes, heavily, as she speaks. "I do."

_Every day_.

"Well, this is a sunny conversation." Maggie retorts, eyes searching the floor for the bottle of scotch she’s kept so faithfully at their side. She sighs, lightly, bumping against Alex’s shoulder with her own in a bid to lighten and dislodge the grey cloud which has fluttered solemnly into the room. It was Christmas - well not quite Christmas yet - but they were supposed to be decorating with grins on their faces, not uncovering traumatic episodes from their respective childhoods.

"You’ll see him again, you know, your dad." Maggie tells Alex, forcing a smile which feels out of place after everything that's been said in the last few minutes. "I’ll help you find him."

"You would- you would do that?"

"For you, yeah. Of course. Alex, you’re my girlfriend. I’ll do everything I can to help you find him. I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I didn’t."

Alex reaches over and takes Maggie’s hand in her own, interlacing their fingers together. She’s touched and emotional at the sentiment and the promise. "That means a lot. Thank you."

"I’m here for you, anytime." Maggie whispers in response, tense shoulders softening with Alex’s smile but there’s something heavy forming in her eyes. The topic of family has always been a gathering storm but Maggie musters the strength and blinks it away. She squeezes Alex’s hand. "You know that, right?"

The heaviness in the room all but disappears, a moment later, when Maggie tilts her head, holding up two strands of tinsel with her free hand, a serious expression crossing her features as she caresses her girlfriend's hand.

"Gold or red?" Maggie asks, trusting such an important decision with her girlfriend.

Alex narrows her eyes, thinking deep. There’s still a twinkle in her eyes from almost tears yet she hopes Maggie can’t see it. The joyful afternoon they had planned together now seems a little brighter.

" _Hmm_ … Definitely red."

 

* * *

 

It’s early evening on Monday when Alex’s cell rings.

She isn’t expecting a call unless Kara is having some kind of sister and/or Supergirl emergency and it couldn’t be Maggie because her girlfriend was sleeping, having been assigned a night shift at the very last minute. It could maybe be work because there happened to be a pattern of sporadic calls whenever Alex least expected them but she had just left the DEO, so she thinks that the latter is unlikely which left only one valid option.

As she pulls her phone from her pocket, her eyes take in the brightness and picture of the caller I.D.

It’s her mom.

Alex’s voice is a tone of surprise as she accepts the call and presses the cell against her ear, crossing a sidewalk as she begins the short stroll back to her apartment a few blocks away.

"Hey, mom, is everything okay?"

It takes Eliza exactly seven minutes to deduce that something has changed.

Alex is sliding the key into her apartment door when her mom sounds just so… joyful. It’s not normally an adjective Alex would use to describe her usually quiet, sometimes stoic, mother.

" _You sound happy, sweetie."_

The grip Alex has on the key in her lock momentarily freezes. Her mom hasn’t always been the most perceptive as much as she likes to tell Alex that "keeping a secret disagrees with you, sweetie." because Alex thinks that it’s taken a good number of years throughout her twenties for her mom to finally – if at all - get her; maybe too many years if you asked Alex. It had happened over time, gradually, as they began to communicate more. Now they had weekly phone call catch ups most weekends and Alex sometimes drove to Midvale on the odd Saturday.

"I- I am happy, mom." she says as the door gives way and she steps inside before closing it behind. Alex throws her keys down on the kitchen counter with a rattle. There’s a pause as the other end of the line falls silent and Alex feels her breath steady as she hears an ominous murmur that says, in no fewer words, that there _had_ to be more to her recent vitality of happiness.

" _Alex…"_  her mom begins. " _Keeping a secret-"_

"Disagrees with me, I know." Alex sighs, closing her eyes as she hears her mom on the other end of the line murmur in agreement. It shouldn’t be hard to say the words - Alex has said those words so many times in recent days as they tug away at the edge of her lips – but it still is. There’s a fragment within Alex that remains nervous and apprehensive to say those specific words to her mom. It feels like coming out all over again. Alex breathes deep, bites her bottom lip in preparation for another truth bomb. It seemed to be a common occurrence in recent times.

Alex feels a little tipsy, minus the addition of a sip or two of liquid courage, but she isn’t drunk on anything except her newfound relationship and the feeling of contentment. She’s one hundred percent drunk on Maggie.

"Maggie and I… we’re- we’re dating." Alex blurts as she closes her eyes and waits for the inevitable shrill of disappointment but… nothing happens.

Nothing.

Instead, she hears her mom laugh, all light and airy, down the phone line. When did she get like this?

" _I know, Alex. You told me last week in the lab. Don’t you remember?"_

"No, mom. Maggie wasn’t my-" she cuts herself off, mumbling and rambling. "We weren’t dating then."

Eliza hums and Alex realises that her mom doesn’t believe her.

"But we’re dating now." Alex clarifies.

Her mom tells her that she’s happy for her, that she’s happy for them, and Alex has to slide down onto the seater adjacent from her fireplace to let that fact fully wash over her as it takes its time to sink in.

" _I’m back in the city at the weekend and I wondered if you would join me for dinner?"_ Eliza suggests, about ten minutes after Alex manages to free herself from the endless list of questions her mom asks her about Maggie.

So she shouldn’t be all that surprised with the following suggestion.

Alex shouldn’t be but she is.

" _You should bring Maggie_.  _I need to be properly introduced to my daughter’s girlfriend."_

In the spur of the moment - and maybe it’s the fact that her mom had actually uttered the words 'my daughter’s girlfriend' - Alex finds herself dazed and uneven, almost speechless. Maybe Kara hadn’t been the only one who had visited an alternate earth and return home changed. It’s all too much, too soon, but Alex finds herself blurting the words 'I’ll host. I’ll make you dinner' before she truly thinks about it.

The words fall out, automatic, and Alex knows that it’s too late to take them back.

" _Are you sure?_   _It’s no trouble to-"_

"So sure." she adds, cutting her mom off. "One hundred percent sure."

Try thirty.

" _And Maggie will be there?"_

"Absolutely." Alex says, her voice seemingly not her own as she nods her head repeatedly, completely unnecessary as her mom wasn’t in the room and couldn’t actually see her. "Of course Maggie will be there."

" _Then it’s settled. I will see you both then."_

"Great." Alex echoes, heart racing.

Not great.

" _I have to go now but it was nice talking to you. I will see you on Saturday."_

"See you Saturday." Alex repeats, the words only now sinking in. "Bye, mom."

" _Bye, Alex."_

The call ends and Alex blinks. She had just invited her mom over to dinner; to dinner with her girlfriend, her very new girlfriend and oh my god now she has to talk to Kara.

Alex moves up from the seater and begins to pace. She hopes – more than anything – that Maggie is going to be okay with having dinner with her mom. It wasn’t like they were complete strangers. They had met briefly in the medical bay when Alex had weaved stitches across the laser wound below Maggie’s collarbone but Maggie hadn’t exactly been lucid. She had been doped up on painkillers, head a little fuzzy as she had lain on the bed so technically it had been a half meeting. Looking back now, Alex thinks it could have gone a little better. Her mom had given them privacy when Alex had told Maggie that she would have to take off her shirt, masking the way that the words would have been very different in another context. Leaving them both alone in the bay, Alex had missed the smile which had touched her mom’s features as she strode from the room.

Was Maggie going to freak? Going to be mad that she arranged something so… heavy with formality so early on in their relationship? Meeting the parents was a big thing _,_ a big deal. Maybe Maggie had been right, maybe she was too fresh off the boat because now she was doing equally spontaneous and crazy things like  _i_ nviting her mom to meet her girlfriend without her girlfriend’s prior consent and Alex wants to crawl away and pretend that she doesn’t feel a flutter of nerves settle deep and engulfing, low, in the pit of her stomach.

She’s introducing her mom to Maggie.


	3. Second Base

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In preparation of introducing her mom to Maggie, Alex talks to Kara. Alex is nervous of the progression, to say the least, especially when the weekend rolls around and her mom is stepping into the confines of her apartment. Maggie meets Eliza and realises that not every Eliza is the same.

"So, I may have invited mom over for dinner on Saturday." Alex tells Kara, later, over the phone after finishing dinner for one. She had decided to call Kara after a few sips of wine – admittedly liquid courage - fingers nervously nursing her glass as she waited for her sister to pick up. 

Alex breathes out, deep, as she paces across her kitchen floor. It wasn’t just dinner, well, not _just_ an average meal shared with her mom. This one would hang with formality and heaviness as she officially introduced Maggie as her girlfriend. That statement alone was enough to form another rain cloud of anxiety hanging high above Alex’s head - and one which had washed over her almost instantly - as she sipped another mouthful of wine.

The introductions were inevitable but maybe not quite this soon. It had been an over step, an automatic offer - an extended hand - and one which Alex had been too polite to take back. This was her mom, her mom who had been nothing but supportive ever since she had initially taken note of Alex’s ever frequent mentions of her  _friend_ Maggie, during everything from family dinners to phone call catch-ups. Her mom had never been the best for close eyed perception but she had worked it out, had read between the lines, and surmised exactly what Alex wanted to say before she had uttered the words. In short, her mom was trying and that was an important step going forward so Alex had to - and would - play her part, too.

There’s a momentary pause of hesitation and weight because the admission is heavy. Like lead balloon heavy.

"Dinner with… Maggie." Alex adds, closing her eyes as she mouths the words.

" _Dinner with Maggie?"_ Kara squeals - actually squeals _-_ and Alex has to angle her cell away from her ear, expression briefly recoiling in pain at the sound. _"That’s a huge step, Alex!"_

"I _know_ it is, Kara, and that’s why I’m calling." Alex says, her tone grounded yet oddly serious. She knows exactly why twisting nerves are engulfing her - understands why she’s been this way ever since locking her phone screen after ending the call with her mom - because there’s a heaviness sneaking its way down onto her shoulders and it’s both daunting _and_ exciting. Maybe not in equal measure, however, because the anxiety weighs more. "You don’t think that it’s… too soon?" Alex whispers, doubt ever present with a nervous pause of breath before she swallows. "For introductions, you know?"

Kara’s following answer is instant. " _Not at all."_

" _Really?"_  Alex asks, sceptical, as her fingers encase her glass as she slumps down onto the support of her couch.

" _No. It’s awesome!"_

"Is it, Kara? I’ve never felt this… nervous before, in all my life."

" _What’s there to be nervous about?"_ Kara clears her throat, sensing that her sister is about to add a deflated "absolutely everything" _._ She can hear Alex’s nervous intake of breath but she swears she can feel her sister’s anxiety shimmering down the phone line like an electrical current. " _I mean, of course there are things to be nervous about!_ _But Eliza will love Maggie."_

"It’s just… it’s a big thing, isn’t it? I mean, I’m introducing my mom to my girlfriend." Alex says with heaviness, her eyes wide as she punctuates each word with breathlessness. Uttering the lone word of "girlfriend" continues to make Alex churn with butterflies because Maggie is exactly that, and yes, Alex is still a little in disbelief to that very fact. "What if I do something wrong, Kara?" Alex pauses as a thought suddenly strikes her between the eyes, much like a punch of a fist and as hard as a fist. " _Oh my god_ what if I ruin dinner and then we won’t have anything to ea-"

" _Alex…"_ Kara sighs, cutting her sister off. _"You’re over thinking! It will be perfect. Eliza will be wowed that you found someone like Maggie. Someone who you care about and who obviously cares a lot about you."_ Breaking in some humour, Kara adds; " _It might even be enough to distract her from your below average cooking skills."_

" _Hey!_ That was uncalled for! My cooking skills are- are to a high standard." Alex tells her, unconvincingly and mildly offended, eyes narrowing. "And anyway, I’ve been practising." she tells her, proudness encasing her voice as Kara’s following chuckle echoes down the line. "You’re just jealous because _you_ haven’t tried my spaghetti. It’s Pomodoro. It’s _amazing."_

" _It_ _sounds amazing."_

"It is." Alex murmurs, with a smile, as she tells Kara that she found the recipe online and that she made it for Maggie the other night.

Kara hums in awe. " _You two are soooooo cute!"_

"Kara, stop." The glow on Alex’s face is burning with warmth, and she’s thankful that her sister can’t physically see her blushing. Although with Kara’s powers, maybe she could.

Kara laughs, heartedly, thankful that her words have been enough to pose as an effective distraction. Alex was no longer lost to a growing anxiety; she was jokingly defensive as she mumbled on about her expanding cooking skills and how her relationship had "nothing to do with wanting to broaden the kitchen platter".

Kara’s plan had worked.

 

* * *

 

"Stop pacing."

"I'm not- I'm _not_ pacing."

"Tell that to the floor you're wearing away." Maggie says, her voice hinted with a tinge of amusement as she reaches out to take hold of her girlfriend’s hand.

Alex glances down at her apartment floor, worried that Maggie could be right. She had been pacing for the majority of the last half hour, both with a creased forehead and an even more anxious expression. Alex’s eyes flicker up from the floor as she interlinks her fingers together with Maggie’s – effectively strengthening the handhold - and finds herself gazing around her apartment, her free arm flailing wild.

"My _mom_ is coming over." Alex begins, repeating the exact statement she had been mumbling since waking up this morning. The spike of nerves Alex had felt twisting and winding since receiving the call on Monday night had been present almost every day this week. It’s now Saturday and that’s a realisation in itself because when did the weeks pass by this quickly? Dread appeared to be a cruel catalyst because the days definitely seemed shorter.

Alex swallows down another gulp of nerves, briefly closing her eyes, as she punctuates her words with emphasised hand motions.

"Coming over for dinner. To have dinner with _us_ … to meet _you."_

" _Alex."_  Maggie’s voice is calm, a breezy coolness of serene, much in contrast to Alex’s own that’s filled with a shaky anxiety and emerging uneasiness. Her girlfriend always seems to possess the power to say the right things at exactly the right time - timed to perfection - calming just by breathing. It came as no surprise that Maggie was the negotiator. Alex briefly wonders just how many people her girlfriend has talked down from a ledge through the years, either by mediating over the phone or in person. It had to be a notable amount.  

"Hey, _hey’._ Maggie soothes, gently tugging her girlfriend’s hand as she encourages Alex’s dark eyes back to meet her own. " _Breathe_ , Alex. I’m here, okay?" she tells her, enforcing every word with a shiny glint in her eyes. Maggie squeezes Alex’s hand as if to exaggerate or prove her presence, to make it known that she _was_ really here - by her side - and would be for the formality of officially meeting her mom no matter what happened.

"She’s like, _literally_ , half an hour away." Alex murmurs as Maggie squeezes her hand again, the touch panging throughout her like a blanket of comfort. Alex sways, briefly glancing towards her apartment door. "She’ll be here soon."

"Everything is going to be fine." Maggie tells her, managing to smooth out the pained crease in Alex’s forehead with a smile as she caresses her side with her other hand. Maggie’s words are confident yet there’s a tiny spark of doubt which flutters within her because family are, truly, a strange thing. They swing in roundabouts, have obvious highs and lows, and even though Maggie has met the blonde, senior Danvers, very, very briefly on one occasion before, she knows better than to believe that family are always accepting. Feelings are interchangeable but people? People are, too, and even more so when you brought sexuality into the equation.

"You don’t know that." Alex’s voice is small, timid, doubtful. In all honesty, she had written off the evening before it had even started, having pre-conceived ideas and conversations of just how bad it was going to go but Maggie? Maggie sees them all; sees the doubts - the anxiety - and she nudges them away - quite literally - by gently bumping Alex’s left shoulder with her own.

"I do, Alex." Maggie murmurs, quietly, tilting her head. "Everything is gonna be fine."

Alex squeezes her girlfriend’s hand, more for reassurance than anything else, swallowing deep as Maggie caresses her side. "Y-Yeah?"

" _Yeah."_ Maggie nods, smiling with perfect whites and dimples. 

In her momentary relapse into anxiety and tetchiness, Alex had forgotten just how well those two simple things – the whites and the dimples - align together on her girlfriend’s face, how much they can light up a room; the emitted calmness that’s always strong enough to extinguish any and all flames of worry. Maggie tugs Alex in, gently and playful, inch by inch, as she whispers that 'it’s gonna be okay’ and Alex all but melts with the way that the closeness makes her chest hammer with safety and support. The words, the touch and the promise are a confident reassurance and her girlfriend means every word.

"Your mom is gonna love what we made not to mention the wine I picked out." Maggie tells her, eyes glinting with something Alex believes resembles a lot like sheer, unfiltered pride (yes, Alex is admitting that Maggie is teaching her a lot about cooking).

"Yeah, I guess she- I guess she is."

"See? It's gonna go well." Maggie tugs Alex closer as they embrace, hugging tight, Maggie’s arms wrapping around her girlfriend’s waist. Alex let’s her hands scale across the dark cotton of Maggie’s shirt as her body melts into her girlfriend. She’s still amazed at how the simple act of hugging could always feel this satisfying. Maggie’s body melds perfectly against her own and it’s in these particular moments when Alex can fully appreciate being a few inches taller than her girlfriend.

"If anything, I'll ply her with wine…" Maggie murmurs, continuing with a smirk against Alex’s shoulder. "…dig up those wild Danvers stories. There’s gotta be something interesting there."

"Ugh, when am I gonna meet your parents so I can do the same?" Alex grins, love struck as she pictures teen and tiny Maggie Sawyer. There had to be photos, right? "I can only imagine how cute you would have been."

"Sure it’ll happen." Maggie responds, head heavy on Alex’s shoulder, but she knows that it won’t. Her expression is solemn and blank, only fading when Alex holds her tighter, breathing over her shoulder. It’s a sigh of contentment Maggie has never experienced before and she’s not sure how that makes her feel.

" _Please_ tell me you had the dimples."

Maggie’s expression creases into a grin and they sway, holding each other tighter. "Well, they didn’t grow overnight."

Eliza arrives half an hour later and Alex is surprisingly calmer and less nervous when her mom steps foot in her apartment but maybe her girlfriend had something – no, a lot – to do with it; Maggie having literally hugged and kissed the apprehension from within her. Alex had viewed it as a sort of sexy exorcism and, she's not going to lie, she really enjoyed it. Maggie extends her hand in greeting and Eliza shakes her head as she opens her arms, wide, inviting her in. It appeared to be a trait of the Danvers as Kara had greeted her in much the same way, with a warm and lasting hug. Like mother, like daughter it seemed.

"We hug, sweetie." Eliza tells her and Maggie raises an eyebrow as she chuckles because of course this was a Danvers thing. Maggie is pulled into a short but friendly hug as Alex looks on, hanging back at her apartment door with a nervous grip on the handle.

"It’s nice to finally meet you." Maggie greets, glancing to Alex. "I've heard so much about you from Alex."

"Like wise. We met very, very briefly in the DEO medical bay." Eliza murmurs, smiling, and Alex moves to Maggie’s side, nervously fidgeting with her hands as she watches the introduction unfold. Suddenly, after spending the afternoon practising and rehearsing the very scenario which is currently playing out before her eyes, Alex doesn't know what to say. In fact, she has forgotten all her lines. Stage fright.

"I was a little... _spaced."_ Maggie admits with a grin, extending her hand for the second time. This time, Eliza takes the offer with a warm grip, squeezing with a smile. "It's nice to finally meet you, Mrs Danvers."

"Please, call me Eliza."

Maggie’s following wince goes unnoticed by both Danvers’ because she covers it up with a bright smile.  _Eliza._ There was just something about the name that spiked buried feelings within herself. She had known other Eliza’s in various stages of her life. It had been her best friend’s name, for one, but Maggie doesn’t like to talk about that Eliza. She’s honest enough to admit that she may have some self-diagnosed people named Eliza prejudice, in the way that anyone with the name is earmarked for avoidance, but this was Alex’s mom. Maggie couldn’t just avoid her and she was being ridiculous, _completely_ ridiculous. After all, it was just a name. It didn’t mean anything or was this a sign?

Maggie blinks, glancing to Alex who is now at her side after finally finding feeling in both of her legs. She was overthinking on a grand _s_ cale, similar to how twitchy Alex had grown in the preluding hours to “mission mom” as she had coined it. Those particular thoughts are both draining and tugging but they definitely didn’t belong to a night like tonight.

Maggie dislodges her worry with a loose shrug of her shoulders, beaming with perfect dimples, letting her consuming thoughts filter and fall away as she let’s go of Eliza’s hand. Tonight isn’t about her grey - and mostly suffocating – past. It’s about Alex. Her girlfriend’s happiness is the sole motivator in most things because seeing Alex’s smile is always an act worthy of sacrificing everything for.

Maggie smiles, genuinely, as she touches Alex’s side. "Eliza it is."

 

* * *

 

The bottle of red wine sits near empty in the middle of the table, dinner bowls scraped clean and pushed aside, when Eliza gazes across at them from the opposite side of the table.

The conversation over dinner has flown freely with the addition of wine and Maggie by Alex’s side, and for an evening that was so highly anticipated with stress and worry, Alex feels light and relaxed. Her mom hasn’t stopped smiling since she entered her apartment and in all honesty, Alex is lost somewhere between relief and suspicion. Relief because her mom likes Maggie and appears to be genuinely happy for the both of them, and suspicion because surely she had to have something to point out to Alex; something that Alex had inevitably done wrong in the navigation of coming out and her baby steps into the world of dating women.

"So Alex tells me you met at a crime scene." Eliza murmurs, eyes firmly rooted on Maggie, and Alex is finally dislodged from her thoughts, turning her head as she awaits her girlfriend’s response. She’s admittedly curious to hear her girlfriend’s take on the subject because the words have been posed from an outsider - her mom - and there’s nothing better than hearing Maggie recollect that particular day. The story appeared to alternate each time, slightly tweaked or exaggerated.

" _Over_ a crime scene, actually." Maggie replies, sipping a mouthful of wine as she recalls that very day;  Alex Danvers in a suit – a breeze of confidence and allure - with a flash of her badge and an equally warning stance. Maggie blinks the sudden day dream away, downing another mouthful of wine. Had she been attracted to Alex at first sight, from straight off the bat? Definitely _,_ although – admittedly – her then future girlfriend had been annoying and equally cocky as she herself had been. Maybe they were meant to be.

Eliza grins at the information. "You both must have hit it off right away."

" _Mom_..." Alex cuts in, embarrassed at the exact moment Maggie murmurs "not exactly" and she watches as her mom’s eyes widen.

Eliza is intrigued to say the least and if Alex knows her mom – and she does – she’s a little tipsy, too. "Not exactly?"

"Alex got a little… _territorial."_ Maggie answers, her smile growing wider and she’s proud at her chosen word. "She objected to me being there."

Alex scoffs. She won’t let that one slide.

"I did _not_ object." 

"Your first words to me were “ _what the hell do you think you’re doing in my crime scene_ ”" Maggie tells her, smug - offensively _s_ mug - blinding Alex with a grin. "You were all mild threats of jurisdiction as you got all up in my face."

"I did not-" Alex blinks, embarrassed as she reaches for another mouthful of wine because Maggie’s words were exactly what had transpired. Alex admits it all too quickly, much to Maggie’s amusement, and her dimples only deepen as Alex caves in admission after a brief black and white replay of their first meeting plays in her head.

Maggie gazes at her, steadily, as Alex scoffs in disbelief. Her mom is nothing but amused.

"Okay, _maybe_ I did."

"Admit it, Danvers." Maggie prods, flirting – blatantly flirting in front of her mom – and Alex’s eyes are riveted to Maggie’s, her girlfriend’s voice a cool breeze and calming whisper of intoxication. "You liked me from the start."

"I guess I- I guess I did." Alex admits, cheeks reddening as her mom murmurs "just like me and your father _"_ and it’s official, her mom has been replaced. Alex wants to scan her mind for any fluctuations in brain activity. Maybe even throw in a DNA test for good measure. Possibly a shapeshifter?

When her mom excuses herself to go use the bathroom, ten minutes later, Alex let’s out the biggest sigh of relief and she twists her head around to face her girlfriend.

"It’s going well." Maggie murmurs, covering Alex’s hand with her own on the table. Maybe it’s too early to judge but she thinks she likes this Eliza.

"Yeah." Alex sighs, letting herself fully breathe. "Better than I thought it would."

"Your mom is nice, made me feel welcome." Alex smiles, squeezing her girlfriend’s hand in response as Maggie’s gaze shifts downwards to the table in front of them; to the very messy table in front of them. Maggie’s eyes widen. "Guess I’ve got some washing to do?"

Alex grows curious, her expression twisting into a flirtatious smile as she raises an eyebrow. "You tryin’ to _woo_ me or somethin’?"

"It’s cute that you think I even need to try _."_ Maggie flirts, her breath hovering ever closer towards Alex’s lips as she leans in. "You _do_ know I don’t need to try, right?"

Alex swallows as her girlfriend’s breath trickles across her lips and her eyes close, automatically. She wants to teasingly whisper something along the lines of "if I admit it will you make out with me" or "you’re all talk, Sawyer" but her voice just freezes in the back of her throat in anticipation of the kiss. Maggie’s breathing mixes together with Alex’s own short and stunted gasps of wavered breath as she inches closer, reaching out to caress Alex’s cheek with a gentle finger.

The kiss begins gradual and soft, fitting for the evening they’ve shared, lips lingering until Alex becomes acutely aware of the sound of water flushing and the echo of footsteps in her bathroom and then they _have_ to break apart.

When her mom emerges a moment later, Maggie is washing glasses at the sink – looking extremely innocent – in contrast to Alex who is all flushed faced, her lips red and overly kissed, but it’s not just a side effect of the multiple glasses of wine; it’s the _we made out in secret while you were away_ side effect. Alex would have to master that skill. Maggie made it look easy. Thankfully, her mom does not notice at all and Alex is kind of thankful that she’s managed to skip that particular parental introduction cliché.

"This one, Alex, is a keeper." Eliza tells her, smiling as she glances towards Maggie doing her very best co-hosting duty, washing the cutlery and glasses in the sink. Alex sways, grabbing a towel from the rack to dry the washed items next to the sink. Her mom is right, of course, Maggie is a keeper.

"I remember how much I had to chase you and your sister to do the dishes." Eliza continues. "It’s nice to know that not much has changed in all these years."

"I was _fourteen years old_ , mom." Alex says, laughing as if her age was enough to excuse her.

"Bad habits start young, honey." Eliza retorts in response to Alex’s eye roll. "At least Kara learned."

Eliza leaves ten minutes later, hugging Maggie goodbye as Alex walks her out to the elevator.

"Thank you for dinner. I really enjoyed it."

"You know you’re welcome any time." Alex says as she presses the elevator call button.

"Your dad would be so proud of you, Alex." her mom begins, heavy with emotion and seemingly out of nowhere, as Alex turns around. "So proud of the person you have become." Eliza smiles as both their gazes study the elevator as it crawls its way up from the floor below. "Maggie is a really nice girl."

"Yeah, she- she is." Alex breathes, thankful for the sudden _ding_ and arrival of the lift shaft. Her mom likes Maggie, had enjoyed the evening they had shared and had even complimented their Pomodoro. Miracles do, indeed, happen.

"Thank you once again for tonight." Eliza says, beaming as she embraces her daughter with a tight hug.

"Thanks for being so welcoming to Maggie." Alex murmurs as they break apart, smiling as her mom touches her face, moving a wispy strand of wavy hair from her eyes. "She really appreciated it."

"I do hope she’s coming over for Christmas."

It seemed like a given now that they were dating, that Maggie would be invited to stay for Christmas yet, as the festive month came rolling around, it had completely slipped Alex’s mind. Having been too distracted with work, with Kara’s disappearance and the nightly pool sessions she had begun partaking in with Maggie; Alex hadn’t had time to really think about the festive month.

"You’ll have to show Maggie Midvale." Eliza continues, stepping into the elevator, pulling Alex out of her momentary daydream.

Alex smiles. "As long as you hide my yearbook pictures then maybe I will." It was the wine talking.

Eliza’s face lights up at the thought. "You know, Alex, that’s a great idea. I will look them out for her."

" _Mom."_  Alex groans, embarrassed, a grin tugging at the edge of her lips. Her mom had definitely sipped one too many glasses of wine and in all honesty, it’s the most wonderful thing. She’s loose and she’s happy, and that - Alex thinks - is nothing but a good thing.

Alex bids her mom a final goodbye, breathing out a contented sigh before she walks back to her apartment.

Tonight was… kind of perfect after what had initially started off as churns of nerves. Now there's a wholehearted warmth and endless rush of happiness. Alex is happy.

When she closes her apartment door behind, Alex turns to find an empty sink free of all cutlery, bowls, with all glasses washed and dried. Maggie was fast.

"So... your mom left." Maggie begins as she moves away from the kitchen island, reaching out to take Alex by the hand as she throws down the towel she had been using to dry the dishes.

"She did."Alex drawls, letting Maggie take the lead as she walks them over to the couch. She feels a gentle nudge as her girlfriend coaxes her down and she falls back onto the soft firmness of the seater. Alex knows exactly where this is headed.

"Guess that means I can do… this."

Maggie steps into her space, pulling Alex closer, fingertips gliding through short and loose strands of hair at the nape of her neck as they move to grip tight. Alex inches her lips open, feels Maggie's breath trickle across her lips as she hovers closer, Maggie’s grip on her neck guiding their mouths together. Alex loses track of time as their lips meet over and over again, kissing moving deeper as gentle tongues tease open mouths and smiling kisses before Alex feels it; feels Maggie shift, feels something brush across the top of her left thigh and then she feels the following weight - the closeness - because Maggie is climbing into her lap.

Alex almost breaks the kiss in realisation, eyes wanting to open wide and prolong the scene with her own eyes, to make sure that it's real, but then Maggie is rolling her hips with a sound which is definitely induced by arousal and Alex loses all functioning thought. The sliding fingers gliding through her hair firmly cup her neck and Alex tries her best to swallow – to breathe - at just how good and right everything feels. Maggie's weight. Maggie’s touch. Maggie's tongue. Maggie's lips. Maggie.

Alex’s grip is steady on her girlfriend's hips as the kiss twists and deepens. She can't remember if kissing ever felt this good – this pleasurable - and Alex swears that her whole life begins and ends with Maggie Sawyer, weighty words of jurisdiction be damned. There's a glow which grows and spreads - trickles across her skin in a way which resembles goosebumps - at every sudden flick and lick of tongue and Alex is receptive, pushes back when Maggie pulls back, chases after her teasing tongue with half swallowed moans and a full encompassing body shot of arousal.

It feels like minutes before the touch slows and Alex's skin prickles when the room falls into a quietness which is absent from the wet sounds of kissing. Maggie pulls back, resting her forehead against her own, breath warm with a hint of wine, as it falls gently across Alex's lips.

Alex tries to slow the heavy hammering of her heart, tries to reignite the voice that sits faded and out of use at the back of her throat. There's a thirst that exists within her now, one that's needed to be quenched to revive her voice. Alex manages to swallow, manages to breathe and open her eyes.

"This okay?" Maggie whispers, her voice deliciously strained with breathlessness as Alex shifts beneath her. Maggie's lips are just within her vision as her gaze flickers down, foreheads resting against one another. "We can stop if it’s too much."

Even in shadow as Alex glances down, she’s made aware that Maggie’s lips are bruised and red and all she wants to do is pull them between her teeth so they can replay what they've just been doing. She finds feeling in her hands and inches them up and away from Maggie's waist before they snake through dark, shiny strands of hair.

Alex shakes her head, no. _No_ , she does not want to stop.

"Do you wanna stop?" she asks, voice oddly composed for the situation she’s found herself in. Alex’s question is followed up by the final and resounding answer of "I don’t think I could if I wanted to"and Alex all but moans when Maggie let's out a breathy whisper of her name - her full name, not Danvers - Alex.

It’s like a match strikes and everything else falls away as a flame sparks bright and into light, the room catching fire as it just burns. Alex closes the gap between them, slides her fingers through Maggie’s hair as she pulls her girlfriend in. Maggie's lips are soft and firm as they land firmly against her own and the touch lingers before Alex inches back, fingers gliding through Maggie's hair until they settle in place just below her ears, effectively cupping her face. Maggie is pulled closer again and Alex tilts her head, trying to increase contact, as their mouths meet again. Her breath mixes together with Maggie's now, and she grips her girlfriend harder, meets her tongue mid-kiss and the sloppy slushy noise of kissing immediately returns to the room.

Maggie shifts in her lap - lost to the moment - inching back as she breaks away from Alex’s lips, gripping her shirt, fingers scaling down and over to pop open the buttons. The buttons are torn carelessly and roughly open by her fingers – Maggie may have even lost a button in the process – and Alex's eyes are riveted to what the lack of clothes leave behind: Maggie's hair falling tousled and wavy over tan shoulders and Alex can do nothing but stare because there's a chest, a black bra and below that, abs. Very defined abs and wow, Alex thinks she’s just doubled – no, tripled – in gay. Of course Maggie would be fit, she had taken an oath to serve and protect so it only made sense that she would have to obtain a certain level of physique that was strong enough to chase down bad guys through alleyways and over fences or whatever other cop cliché Alex can’t quite think of right in this moment because seeing that – Maggie’s taught abdomen – up close was just something else.

One thing is clear to Alex, however, through the haze of seduction, Maggie needed to wear less shirts, like way less shirts more.

When Alex’s eyes eventually move up from Maggie’s abdomen, they swirl across her girlfriend’s chest before landing on the small corruption of the stitch below her collarbone, the one that her own hands had weaved just over two weeks ago. Alex feels an uneasy jolt at what could have been, of what had almost happened, and she kisses her girlfriend harder as Maggie’s lips return to her own. She kisses back with fervour, moans when she feels fingers playing with the wisps of her hair at the nape of her neck, Maggie’s fingers gliding through the short strands. Alex eases her lips open when she breaks apart to steal a brief moment of air before she pushes closer, pushing over Maggie's lips with her tongue, eliciting a sound which is lost somewhere between a whimper and a moan. Alex’s hands are trailing over a tight and ridged stomach, now, doubling in warmth at every patch of tan skin they skim across and touch.

Maggie sits back in her lap, gazes at Alex as she grips her neck. She’s out of breath and for good reason, smouldering with a dazed smile but there’s a hint of something else as well. She smirks and Alex feels her girlfriend’s grip falter and move away from her neck as Maggie leans back. Alex’s hands slide automatically to pull her girlfriend back in – because she needs to feel Maggie now more than ever - but Maggie eases her hands down, moving them to grip her waist and Alex can do nothing but watch as her girlfriend’s hands disappear – momentarily and quickly – to move around to her back. Alex blinks because in the following seconds, Maggie is sitting astride her lap, sans bra, chest protruding and everything is happening at two speeds too fast but Alex thinks she’s getting used to the tempo. In fact, she likes it. Maybe it isn’t fast enough.

Alex’s mouth feels like sandpaper as her hands scale up towards Maggie's sides, inching across smooth contours of skin, sliding closer. She’s not sure if she’s allowed to touch but one glance at her girlfriend tells her that it’s very much okay – in fact – Maggie is the very epitome of encouraging and her face flickers with excitement _,_ glowing as she reaches down for Alex’s hands, inviting her to touch.

"It’s just me, Alex." Maggie’s voice is quiet and Alex can tell by the heavy intake of breath which precedes the comment, that Maggie is also aroused. Her voice colours with a deeper tone, a hoarseness, and Alex flutters with a nervous relaxation. _Oxymoron_ , much?

"You’re… beautiful." Alex whispers, her voice honest and raw. She swallows, deep, her mouth dry as her eyes flicker over Maggie’s features, momentarily gazing down again towards her girlfriend’s exposed chest. "So… beautiful." She swallows, thickly, as Maggie inches her hands up, moving them closer towards her chest.

"If I’m beautiful then you’re breath taking." Maggie murmurs as Alex’s hands land coolly on her chest.

"I’m not- I'm not... naked." Alex whispers, distracted at the newfound feeling and touch. Her voice is barely a sound as if the words she’s expressed have been too much.

Maggie kisses her soft, squeezing Alex’s hands with her own as she inches back, an eyebrow rising and an ever present playful smirk; always that smirk. "Do you wanna be?"

Alex doesn’t answer – she’s not sure if she can – because her body and mind are on _fire._ When Maggie encourages her with another grin and display of her dimples, Alex’s confidence returns in motion. Maggie’s hands drop from her own and she tries to functionally breathe when she realises the intimate position her hands have been placed in because they’re on her girlfriend’s chest.

Alex gets brave. The flats of her hands skim over and settle on the undersides of Maggie's breasts and she squeezes, reacts to the immediate feeling of skin beneath her palms – boobs - and Maggie's breathy moan of "Danvers". 

Maggie’s breasts feel small but firm in her hands and Alex grows a little lightheaded at the current situation she finds herself in; at their timely arrival at second base. The mounds of flesh are soft in her hands, smooth, and Alex slips back into her character of confidence, fingers closing as she gently squeezes. Maggie reacts by moaning and by pushing their mouths together and Alex feels her hands once again repeating the action and squeezing _._ The palm of her hands graze across the dark silhouettes of nipples and Alex thinks she’s going to remember this moment for the rest of her life. Maggie laps at her mouth with a slip of her tongue and Alex kisses back, harder, surrendering over into the touch and the feeling of Maggie’s round breasts cupped so perfectly in her hands.

She’s not sure how long it lasts for, her mind kind of drifts at the sensation, as they kiss and kiss and kiss, making out slow and then heavy. Alex isn’t comfortable with the word _fondle_ but she’s pretty sure that’s exactly what she’s doing with Maggie as the kiss twists and deepens.

And then Alex gets an idea. A great idea.

" _Wait."_ Alex whispers, easing her warm mouth and lips away from Maggie’s as she speaks. She’s out of breath, her heart plummeting fast and hard in her chest, her eyes a blazing pool of hypnotism and love. Maggie tended to have that effect on her.

Alex lets her hands inch down and away from her girlfriend’s chest as she attempts to recapture her breath.

"Alex, I’m sorry if this is going way too fast. I-" Maggie begins, cutting herself off when she realises that Alex is _not_ freaking out, is _not_ having a panic attack. Instead, she’s reaching down to free herself from her sweater. Alex is gripping the material and tugging it off.

"You asked me if I wanted to be naked and you know what, Maggie?" Alex’s voice lowers in tone, dipping an octave, and she bites her bottom lip, grinning as she grips the material of her sweater. Her words are corny yet she loves it. "I wanna be naked _."_

Alex is aroused and excited andMaggie is left speechless, shifting slightly as she helps Alex free herself from her sweater; tugging it up, up and away over her head. The motion leaves Alex’s hair a little messy, a little wavier than usual, and as Alex tosses the dark sweater to the floor, Maggie’s lips collide with her own. Her girlfriend’s hands are cool against her sides, against her abdomen, as they glide upwards to her chest and Alex, once again, gets lost in the feeling of kissing.

They break apart, a minute later, resting their foreheads together.

"Are you sure about this, Alex?" Maggie’s whispered words are genuine, caring, even through the multiple layers of out arousal and breathlessness. She can’t remember the last time she ever felt this turned on, chalking it up to the countless times they’ve found themselves making out in their respective apartments. Skin on skin is a whole other level that they’ve graduated to. "If you don’t wanna go further, we can stop."

"I don’t wanna stop, Maggie." Alex breathes, brushing her nose against her girlfriend’s. "Everything feels… amazing."

"Yeah?" Maggie asks, feeling Alex’s smile against her cheek.

"Yeah." Alex murmurs, grinning. "And I guess it’s time I took… _this_ thing off, right?"

Maggie is silenced with another kiss as Alex shifts beneath her, hands moving away from their position against her abdomen. There’s a slight fumble as they continue to kiss, the room prickling with the sudden sound of an elastic tug and snap.

Oh.

Maggie eases them apart, Alex shifting to free herself fully from her bra as it joins the growing stack of items piling high on her apartment floor. She gazes at Maggie like the concept of her girlfriend's presence is too much, like it’s almost too much of a reveal as her chest protrudes bare, but Alex’s twinge of nervousness is extinguished by the growing grin which filters across her girlfriend’s face and her momentary sidestep into apprehension disengages.

Alex finds herself reaching out again, her touch landing firm and heavy on Maggie’s abs.

"You’re beautiful, Alex." The look which greets Maggie in return is one of disbelief and Maggie tilts her head as she reaches out to feel the softness of the pale skin now on display. Alex closes her eyes, swallowing a deep intake of breath as her girlfriend’s touch inches higher, sliding closer towards her breasts. The intimacy of it all sparks a new found feeling within her but she’s not sure what it is yet. " _So_ beautiful."

Maggie’s hands are on the undersides of her breasts when Alex closes the gap between them again, reacting with a moan and a trickle of arousal when Maggie squeezes, thumbs circling her nipples and their mouths meet deeper again, harder. Of course Maggie Sawyer would be a pro at that.

Alex mirrors the motion, follows through with a tactic of her own but instead of squeezing her girlfriend’s breasts like she has been doing previously, she cups them and then rubs. Maggie reacts with a moan - something which is half swallowed down by Alex’s mouth and following kiss - and Alex is smirking. Just as before, the concept of time seems to hollow out and fall away as they get lost in one another, and when they finally do inch apart, Maggie is flushed and dishevelled with an equally flushed and dishevelled Alex beneath her.

"Stay with me?" Alex suggests when she’s finally fought and won the battle to recapture her voice after pushing through multiple layers of arousal and euphoria. "Tonight."

"Somehow I don’t think we’ll get much sleep if I do that." Maggie tilts her head as she reads affirmation in her girlfriend’s expression. Alex doesn't want to sleep.

"It’s late, Maggie."

"It is and that’s why I should go."

"You don’t have to-" Alex pauses, to catch her breath. "You don’t have to go."

"C’mon, you’re not exactly helping me here." Maggie whispers, smiling. "What with the voice and looking like that."

"Then stay."Alex reaffirms. "I’ll make you breakfast in the morning." she adds, figuring that could be the deal breaker in persuading her girlfriend to stay the night. "Blueberry pancakes?"

"Sounds amazing but I-" Maggie kisses her, chastely.  "Maybe we can rain check on the breakfast and the blueberry pancakes?"

"Maggie, you’re more than welcome to stay."

"I know I am, Alex." Maggie pauses, suddenly realising that they were having a conversation like this, with nakedness and straddling but the air, it seemed, had finally cooled between them. Tonight doesn’t feel like their night. Not yet, at least. They had, however, just crossed the wavy line into second base and that in itself was something of a halfway to that particular night. "But I- I should go."

Maggie fixes herself up in the bathroom before she leaves; giving Alex a brief moment to analyse everything that had just unfolded between them. It somehow didn’t feel real but when her eyes shifted down, clocking her bra and sweater tossed so carelessly to the floor in what had transpired, Alex realises that yeah, it did happen and yes she’s still sitting in her apartment half naked while her girlfriend buttons up her shirt.

One thing is very present to Alex, however, second base is kind of amazing.


	4. Staying Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie surprises Alex with a date night. A day later, while playing pool, Alex wagers a bet which results in interesting consequences.

Alex Danvers may have underestimated just how much Maggie Sawyer loves Christmas - to say the least - if her girlfriend’s love for hanging decorations during the previous week had been anything to go by. So when Maggie had arrived at Alex’s apartment – on an evening mid-week after work - wearing a red, festive themed sweater emblazoned with a highlighted Christmas tree emblem in the centre, Alex shouldn’t have been all that surprised. Her girlfriend’s excitement for Christmas only seemed to increase as the day crept closer.

Alex had underestimated Maggie’s fondness for the festive holiday and for spontaneous date night surprises, something which her girlfriend has been springing on her for the last couple of days. It’s now Wednesday, late evening, and they’ve just had dinner in the form of a box of pizza. Alex is looking to relax when Maggie tilts her head, grinning as she tells her that they’re both going out and that it’s a surprise.

"A _surprise?"_ Alex asks, grinning with a growing curiosity, her eyes narrowing as she deposits the empty pizza box on top of the kitchen island, excitement filtering throughout her. "Where are we going?"

Maggie’s grin remains in place. "It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, Danvers, now would it?"

The surprise transpires to be National City Park at night - in the dark - and Alex loves it.

Maggie pulls a tartan blanket from her car and a bundle of items that Alex has to squint to fully see in the yellow haze of a flickering street light. They find a spot in a fresh patch of grass situated next to a running fountain and it’s kind of a cliché because Alex swears she can hear a cricket punctuate the falling silence of night as the moon shimmers in the Wednesday night sky.

"It’s kinda corny but I, uh, I brought us root beer and chips." Maggie says as she places the blanket on the grass, smoothing it out with her hands. "Thought it’d be nice to spend some time outdoors, you know? The city gets a little... stuffy, sometimes."

"Maggie, this is…" Alex’s eyes whip around, gazing between her girlfriend to the blanket and then to the stack of snacks tucked neatly under one of Maggie’s arms. It’s the kind of mid-week surprise that Alex could get used to. There’s a proudness glowing on Maggie’s face – engulfing her eyes - because her date night surprise is being well received and Maggie’s smile only grows brighter, doubling as Alex gazes around. "This is perfect _."_ Alex breathes out, touched by the gesture.

Date night is awesome. The sky is clear and free from cloud, and they stargaze as they lay with their backs flat on the blanket, murmur to one another about equally dorky things like what that particular far-off constellation looks like, how that star sort of looks like the letter t and kiss between everything else.

Alex confides in Maggie about the last time she had visited the park and how the occasion had been spent with Kara before her sister had began her job at CatCo and it only hits Alex in that very second, just how much has changed in the passing years. Her sister’s career has developed in a lot of ways and not just in the standard promotions way but in the Supergirl way. Kara isn’t the only one who has completed her fair share of growing, though, Alex muses. The last time she had strolled through the park is still fresh in Alex’s mind because she had worn such a creased and worried expression; the worry that had probably left her with stress in the form of wrinkles and the kind of thing Kara would read about in her glossy CatCo magazines. Her kid sister had been starting her job as the assistant to the aptly coined “Queen of World Media” Cat Grant and Kara was just so… nice - too nice - for the world of precision lattes and memos. Alex has watched as her sister has grown in confidence ever since that day and has, somewhere along the way, found happiness for herself. It’s hard for Alex to ever imagine thinking back then that she’d be on a date with her girlfriend in the same place barely a few years later. It’s strange how things work out.

When they return to Alex’s apartment hours later, Maggie hovers in the centre of her kitchen and it’s only in that moment when Alex realises that her girlfriend is nervous. It’s etched across Maggie’s face, settling in her expression, as her gaze flits towards the floor and then back up to meet Alex’s eyes.

"Tonight was every date cliché I could have imagined and more." Alex begins, reaching out to touch her girlfriend’s side, trying her best to ease her girlfriend’s apparent unease. Maggie smiles at the comment and Alex feels a sudden rush of affection – an instant jolt and flip flop of her stomach - at the resurgence of dimples. She sways, blinking as if to pull herself from the almost mystic like trance, just catching herself as she grins. "Thank you."

Maggie smiles, touching Alex’s side. "You _do_ love a cliché."

"You make it sound like that’s a bad thing." Alex comments as she moves closer, pulling Maggie in until she can feel the cool of her breath trickling across her lips. It’s faint but ever tantalising. The novelty of the feeling would never wear off because it was just too good.

Alex has realised in the past couple of days that she really likes teasing her girlfriend, teasing which normally offers up various benefits of its own. The current bonus is the confession Alex had revealed one night after dinner, and not one Maggie had been at all surprised to hear; that Alex had missed out on an endless amount of ‘firsts’. Her girlfriend had then followed up her confession by rhyming off a list of standard relationship ideals and Maggie had, of course, taken note. One of the aforementioned firsts - Alex had voiced - had been a date night in the park and here they were, doing exactly that. Maggie would get around to the others, in time, she promised.

Alex sucks in a breath as she brushes her nose against Maggie’s, content with the way that it makes her girlfriend’s breathing momentarily falter in anticipation. Alex could do that. "How can it be when it means I get to do… this?"

The gap closes between them as Maggie wraps her arms around Alex’s neck, opening her mouth for Alex’s tongue to deepen the kiss, her girlfriend’s hands moving to grasp her waist.

Things have been gradual between them – not quite slow but not quite fast – and their initial slither into second base has only quantified as the days have passed by (not solely at Alex’s apartment but also at Maggie’s) and Alex has discovered that her girlfriend’s couch is extremely comfy for making out on, especially when she’s pressing Maggie down into the cushions and climbing on top of her.

They eventually ease apart from one another with all the enthusiasm for continuing the kiss but they need air so they pause to breathe. Alex plays with Maggie’s hair as she breathes out a sigh of contentment, of love. Her girlfriend’s face is flushed and red, her expression numbed with something that looks a whole lot like affection, and Alex finds herself mesmerised because it’s still – incredibly - overwhelming that she has been gifted with the influence and power to cause Maggie Sawyer to react in such a way. It’s almost too much because the power it offers up is surely a dangerous potent but Alex likes it – a lot – and by the looks of things, she isn’t alone.

Alex overflows with confidence as she whispers an invitation of staying the night and Maggie briefly glances down, grinning, as she tells her that she can’t, that she has a work thing super early in the morning but that she wants to and Alex has to repeat the words to herself, twice, because Maggie really does want to stay the night.

"So, stay _."_ Alex flirts, her voice overflowing with a teasing flair of seduction. She gazes into Maggie’s eyes, smiling hard when she recognises the waves of temptation which are revolving like cogs around her girlfriend’s head, her brown eyes deep and dilated. Maggie tells Alex she’s sorry because as much as she wants to stay, it’s something that she just can’t get out of, her touch lingering on her girlfriend's sides with remorse. Maggie does actually have a work thing in the morning and she does want to stay – more than anything – but work is, sadly, a priority. She has a case to close before the holiday can truly begin in a couple of days.

Alex accepts her girlfriend’s reasoning with a grin and a half chuckled ‘I had to try’ before she pulls Maggie into another kiss, effectively their last for the night. They make sure that they make it count, though.

"See you tomorrow?" Maggie asks, rhetorically, when they eventually inch apart and Alex is walking her back to the door.

"Of course."

Maggie bids Alex goodbye as she strides down the corridor towards the lift shaft; hand out stretching to press the call button. As she waits for the elevator to rise up from the ground floor, she inertly congratulates herself on her inner strength because here she was, leaving her girlfriend alone again - a woman who she finds herself incredibly attracted to - in her apartment instead of staying the night. Staying the night wasn’t something Maggie would normally think twice about but things felt different because this wasn’t just some random hook up, it was a growing relationship but most importantly; this was Alex. She deserved the world, deserved the right mood and setting for her first time. Their first time.

It’s a steady pressure and one which has been doubling in weight and grating heavily against Maggie’s shoulders ever since making out added the magical addition of touching because things are progressing between them - not quite slow but not quite fast as admitted - in terms of intimacy. Maggie senses it building; acknowledging that the right time hasn’t surfaced yet in the passing weeks and she’s not exactly sure how that makes her feel. She’s a patient person in almost every aspect of her life and sex is no different. In Maggie’s experience, she’s found it to be something you could never quite rush because it had to feel right. Even the odd one night stand had to unfold in the right time and place because bad sex was still, indeed, bad sex. Alex was never going to be a one night stand, however. Their relationship feels different and, to Maggie, that’s a revelation because she’s still, admittedly, a little insecure. She’s often found herself to be the saboteur - involuntarily and sometimes willingly - in past relationships and Maggie has lost count of the exes she has left to gather dust in a metaphorical box of memories somewhere. She’s always had a strained exchange with happiness, often finding herself to be the captured prey in a tangled web of something she was supposed to be enjoying but never could. Enjoyment was always pushed to the side to make way for the inevitable sinking feeling of fear that would settle deep within and suffocating. Maggie would do something wrong in retaliation for it, tell herself she didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve happiness, and she would believe it. Every time.

Maggie feels herself swaying as she gets lost in a spinning pool of voluminous thoughts, all of them Alex. The loudest feeling in her head, however, is the one that lands centrally between her eyes, in bold large letters. It’s one that’s been absent from Maggie’s life and recent relationships for a brief period but now it’s back – floating to the surface of her conscience with a vengeance - and she can feel it; can feel it crawling across her skin by each passing second in a way which almost resembles a sheath.

The elevator dings on its arrival at the moment Maggie realises exactly what the feeling is. It’s hot, itchy and insistent all at once.

Because it’s sexual frustration.

 

* * *

 

Maggie is four beers in when she feels the floor beneath her feet sway.

She’s tended to get better at pool whenever she feels a little tipsy or maybe that was because Alex was just as drunk as she currently finds herself which made for an even – albeit - drunk playing field. Maggie, however, has lost track of what round they’re currently on – only that Alex has won a “few”- but she knows with a steady proudness that she’s winning this game.

"I gotta get you to come along to my yoga class." Maggie tells Alex as she leans down against the table, lining up her next shot. The ball she’s hoping to pot overhangs the bottom right hand pocket of the table. Maggie snorts. She had this in the bag, easy. Alex would definitely be losing the smug smile she had been wearing almost permanently since winning the last game.

"Loosen you up a little."

"I’m _loose."_  Alex splutters, finishing her beer. She sounds defensive and somehow that warms Maggie’s smile even more. She’s drunk, too, of course. Actually, they both are and it’s Thursday; a work night. Although, even their jobs were beginning to wind down as Christmas crept around. They’d soon be turning their backs on their respective work places for the holiday.

"I bet you are." Maggie murmurs and Alex tilts her head at the blatant flirtation, gripping her pool cue for support as she stands next to a bar stool. Only Maggie Sawyer could ever be this smooth under the influence of a handful of beers and mixers. Alex feels a little objectified as her girlfriend’s eyes rake over her body, jaw slackening as she opens her mouth as she attempts to function a retort, but the thinly cut sound of pool balls clattering pulls her attention. Alex’s eyes gravitate towards the table and her expression falls into one of shock because Maggie had potted the stripe and had left the white ball aligning for her next shot in a somewhat perfectly way.

"You got lucky."

"Pick your jaw up from the floor, Danvers, and admit that I’m getting better." Maggie tells her, smug and amused as she moves up from the table, dramatically staring down her next shot. Thank you, alcohol.

"Still a fluke." Alex shrugs her shoulders, swallowing a mouthful of beer before she tells Maggie that she got lucky for the second time because luck was on her side. Yes, she’s drunk.

"Luck." Maggie rolls her eyes, waving her cue dramatically, as she stares Alex down. "Is that what we’re calling it these days?"

If her previous shot was luck then Maggie’s next shot is fated (Alex isn’t going to admit this aloud, however) because the white is literally a mile away from the stripe situated between the left hand middle bag and cushion.

It’s not an easy shot. It shouldn’t be an easy shot and yet, Maggie pots it.

"Stop cheating." Alex groans, dramatically.

Maggie knows she shouldn’t find the sight of a drunk Alex Danvers this amusing but she does.

" _Cheating?"_ Maggie’s eyes are wide; her dimples creasing into place and Alex would be more annoyed if her girlfriend wasn’t so attractive while manoeuvring around an old scratched up, dive bar pool table. "It’s called skill, Alex."

Alex scoffs her disbelief, sipping another mouthful of beer, resting against a bar stool. "You call that skill?"

"You got somethin’ better?" Maggie retorts, playful with expectant eyes. There’s a hint of challenge that she knows will strike a light in her girlfriend’s eyes because, oh boy, did they get competitive.

"In fact, I do, yeah." Alex tells her, placing her glass down on the side ledge with confidence. "What do you say if we make our game a little more… interesting?"

"A wager." Maggie raises an eyebrow as Alex nods, her attention captured. "I’m listening."

Alex takes a sharp intake of breath, gazing at her girlfriend as she leans across the pool table. She’s thought of a lot of bets in the span of their short dating life, saving most of the ideas in a mental note in her head, locked away for the right time. They’re competitive together and their pool games are doubling in competition almost daily. Wagering just added to the fun of it all, especially when Alex could enjoy exploiting the fact that her girlfriend happened to be a rather terrible pool player. This bet, however, is different. It’s something new, something Alex has been thinking a lot about in the past week and now that she’s a little drunk, and a little more confident for that reason, the thought entangles in a mental cocktail she rather likes the look of, so – of course – Alex stirs.

"Loser of the next game has to spend the night at the victor’s apartment."

Before Alex really thinks about it, before she lets the words of "spend the night" fully wash over her and sink in, Maggie is murmuring "you’re on".

The bet on a whole is ridiculous because bet or no bet, they would be going home together. So, as Alex chalks the tip of her cue with a blue cube of chalk, the implications of staying over echo throughout her mind on a loop. The weeks have been a prelude, of course, and now they’re dating. Sex; sex was inevitable; and something that Alex has been spending a lot of time thinking about. There’s a nervous energy which flickers throughout her whenever the thoughts resurface but what is equal part nerves, is equal part excitement, and if Alex is being honest, the piercing spike of feelings lean more towards the latter of excitement.

Excitement constructs within Alex in the form and buzz of growing butterflies. It’s the same freewheeling shot of adrenaline which had kick started her initial crush and now it’s deep rooted, lodged deep in the depths of Alex’s soul. She’s done her research, has stayed up late in the dark, with nothing but a laptop screen illuminating her face. The things her eyes had scraped across were, for the most part, garbage. There came a limit where text had ended so Alex had treaded into the shaky waters of images and videos and her eyes had blinked repeatedly at what they had uncovered but it definitely wasn't a sole side-effect of eye strain in the dark. Alex had felt hot, turned on, an excitement bubbling its way throughout her veins. A google search only existed to quantify those emotions and looking back, it hadn’t exactly helped with how she was feeling.

Half an hour later, Alex had closed her laptop down, as she sat perched with a curious smile and the steady knowledge that there was definitely going to be an endless list of things she wanted to do to Maggie Sawyer.

 

* * *

 

Maggie wins the set.

Alex swears she didn’t throw the game (she really didn’t, honest) but she had been distracted and distraction seemed to be the main source of Maggie’s power so of course her girlfriend had won.

Alex is both nervous and excited.

Nervous because, hello, she’s staying over and excited because, _hello,_ she’s _staying over_.

Staying over. There's an implication hidden within the two words – a vague subtext - and as Maggie locks her apartment door by the snib and chain, Alex wavers on her feet. She moves across the floor, tugs off her leather jacket which now feels too heavy on her shoulders, and slides down onto the couch when Maggie tells her to make herself at home.

Alex's gaze takes in the square room, decorated in light, neutral colours with plenty of green. She’s only recently stumbled upon her girlfriend's love of bonsai trees and Maggie’s apartment is almost a small forest. There's a Dawn Redwood in the middle of the kitchen island, a Mountain Pine wedged in between the TV and stand, and even a Cherry Dogwood planted in the middle of the coffee table in front of the couch. Alex had learned all about the variations from Maggie, her girlfriend’s passion for the miniature trees nothing short of adorable. Maggie had even wrapped the teeniest, tiniest strand of tinsel around the Cherry Dogwood situated just in front of Alex’s feet. ‘It’s all in the detail’ her girlfriend had said.

"You want a drink?" Maggie asks, tossing her keys on the kitchen island as she frees herself from her leather jacket. Alex pulls her gaze away from the bonsai tree and tray situated in front of her as she smiles and nods. Maggie grins, waving a hand as she snatches a bottle from a cupboard. "Pretty limited bar. Scotch or beer?"

Alex hesitates. Her head feels a little fuzzy but she chalks it up to excitement and nerves rather than the effects of alcohol because she suddenly feels a little more sober.

"Uh, scotch?"

There's a rattle then a thick scraping sound as Maggie places the bottle down and proceeds to fish out two tumblers from another cupboard. As Alex waits, her attention is captured by a clear, plastic box situated across the floor and curiously – and nosily – she moves up to inspect it. To her surprise, the box is full of CDs.

Maggie starts pouring the liquid, glancing up to find Alex over at her collection. The scotch swishes into the glass as she grins. "I see you found them. Don’t judge, okay? I bought most of them when I was still in college. I had… questionable taste in music back then."

Alex lifts the lid on the box, too curious now. "Lemme see what you’ve got here." she adds, amused as she pulls out a small stack.

"Old school, right?" Maggie says as she finishes pouring the spirit. She nods to the dying format, twisting the cap back on the bottle. "I can’t remember the last time I bought one."

"Kara inherited mine when she moved into my old apartment but they weren’t really her thing. Too much alternative and not enough N-SYNC _."_ Alex pauses to clarify her words, smirking. "Kara’s words, not mine."

Maggie winces, fingers grasping the two tumblers as she strides over towards Alex. "NSYNC? Talk about rough. The perks of being an only child; missing out on the wonders of boy-bands."

Alex freezes, eyes wide, turning to face her girlfriend as she nears her side. "Hold up- you like the Barenaked Ladies?"

Maggie offers Alex a glass, her lips twisting into a smile. It’s too good of an opportunity to pass up because teasing her girlfriend was single-handedly one of her favourite things to do. "I’ve been known to appreciate a few."

Alex rolls her eyes, grinning.

" _Oh_ , you meant the band." Maggie drinks a mouthful of scotch, gently bumping against Alex’s shoulder.

"Of course I did but I guess I walked into that one all on my own." Alex says, half laughing as her fingers skim across the jewel case of the particular album. She dips back into the box, her left hand leafing through some more of the titles. "Looks like you’ve got their whole catalog in here."

"Yep. Seen them back in college a couple of times."

"I _love_ that band."

"You do?" Maggie’s eyebrow rises in challenge. She’s sceptical, to say the least. "Please tell me you know more than 'One Week'?"

"I don’t think any of their singles ever really lived up to their albums, you know? But "If I had a million dollars" did get a lot of airplay on my old busted out stereo back in my dorm days."

Maggie sips another mouthful. She’s surprised that Alex shares an appreciation for a somewhat dusty band from the nineties that they both had listened to back in the glory days of the early 2000s.Her smile grows. "Knew we were right for each other."

Alex grins as she places the album back in the box, her eyes catching sight of another CD, this time one that’s only encased in a clear jewel case with song titles written on the actual disc. There was no inlay but Alex recognises the scribble as her girlfriend’s handwriting. "You made mixtapes?" Alex asks, snatching the album from the box before Maggie’s gaze can meet with what her girlfriend has uncovered.

"Used to, yeah." Maggie murmurs, eyes finally meeting the album Alex was clutching on to. She remembers the CD well, remembers the exact day she had burned the songs onto the silvery disc. The playlist had been composed on her old, burnt out laptop and the subject matter? An ex-girlfriend.

"That’s, uh, that’s an old one." Maggie adds, awkwardly, shifting uncomfortably on the balls of her feet. Alex’s eyes are scanning over the song titles and artists at an incredible rate because she’s both curious and impressed. Her eyes uncover sad song after sad song with a couple of angsty Alanis Morissette numbers thrown in for good measure. This ex-girlfriend had certainly inspired Maggie, to say the least.

Alex places the mixtape back in the box when she realises what it is. 'You Oughta Know' didn’t normally make the feel good numbers for happy mixtapes. "Bad break up?"

Maggie doesn’t want to admit it but yes, yes it was. Her silence and blank stare is an admission in itself and Alex doesn’t have to hear conformation to know that a bad break up is exactly what it was.

"I didn’t mean to-" Alex begins, voicing an apology but Maggie shakes her head, cutting her off. Alex touches her girlfriend’s side. "I overstepped."

"You didn’t overstep, Alex." Maggie sips a mouthful of scotch, glancing down. "It’s just an old dusty box of CDs." Maggie pauses because Alex is gazing at her like she’s searching for any signs that she’s pretending and in all honesty, her girlfriend’s eyes still continue to throw her. "I had no idea that I still had that." Maggie continues, nodding to the mixtape. "I came across the box the other day when I was tidying. I don’t think I’ve even looked at it since I moved in here."

"But I shouldn’t have just opened the box, Maggie. Not without asking."

"Alex, what’s mine is yours. You’re free to borrow any of those CDs, anytime. We gotta rock out to the Barenaked Ladies in your apartment so you can tell me all about your wild college days."

" _Wild_ , huh?’ Alex raises an eyebrow before she dissolves into a grin. ‘I don’t know about _that_ but my apartment is always there."

Maggie reaches for Alex’s hand, tugging her gently back to the couch. They talk between momentary mouthfuls of scotch and that’s when Alex realises that the night isn’t headed where she had initially thought it was. She’s not disappointed; in fact, she’s a little relieved. Again, tonight doesn’t feel right, doesn’t feel like the night because all Alex wishes is for that night to be perfect.

 _Perfect_. It’s a strange word and one that Alex has never found the meaning of; neither truly nor personally. Perfect is absolute, complete, desirable, and it’s only now that Alex is starting to discover those three sentiments because she swears that they arrived - all at once – in the form of Maggie Sawyer.

They start kissing when the scotch stops; kissing which in turn becomes touching and warm hands underneath shirts. Alex helps Maggie free herself from her shirt, done so by surrendering her arms up and Alex all but drags her girlfriend through the door into her bedroom. Somewhere between the door and Maggie's bed, Maggie loses her bra and Alex has everything to do with it.

Maggie is gently eased down onto her back as Alex climbs across her body before she begins to place a cluster of wet kisses all the way from her abdomen up, now more than thankful for being free from any distracting material. Alex’s mouth lands warmly on her chest and Maggie whimpers out a whine at the sudden stimulation because Alex’s lips are right _there_ , on her chest, tongue slipping out to tease and caress a nipple, and Maggie is too tipsy to pull herself away from how dangerously good everything feels. They’ve been here before, of course, relentlessly pushing against one another in a comfortable friction. This scenario is one which has continuously played out ever since graduating to second base and it’s barely been five days. Before they had even crossed that milestone in intimacy – while they were still very much in make out and touch mode - Maggie had found herself, on occasion, leaving Alex’s apartment both damp and wanting to be touched, so sexually frustrated that the only thing she could do was return to her apartment and relax herself. She’s not sure how Alex does it, how Alex is so comfortable with the endless teasing and touching but always strong enough to catch her breath and stop herself from going there, to that point. Her girlfriend wasn’t sexually inept – oh no – nor was she reluctant. Alex was just… waiting for the right moment but then again, so was Maggie.

Alex pulls back, breath pulsating against Maggie’s heaving chest, playfully twisting her head as she pushes back down to give her girlfriend’s other nipple the same attention and Maggie feels it all; Alex’s wavy hair tickling and trailing tantalisingly across her skin, her girlfriend’s slight smile when her body reacts with the same strangled moan of arousal and Alex’s own.

She catches a breath as Alex moves her lips away, kissing her way up until her lips meet her own. Everything feels right and warm – no, hot – and Maggie thinks that maybe Alex is one of _the_ finest kissers she’s ever been blessed with knowing, if not _the_ finest. They continue to kiss as Maggie’s hands help free Alex from her black henley without separating their lips apart, stripping her girlfriend who now lies on her back (Maggie had flipped their positions without as much as a sweat). As Maggie’s lips trail over and caress almost every inch of her chest, Alex’s eyes flutter closed. She takes a sharp intake of breath because this feels like it’s going somewhere and it must be audible enough for her girlfriend to hear because Maggie draws back, her lips lingering against her girlfriend’s. Alex isn’t scared, though, she’s just unsure because she’s imagined their first time – in so many daydreams – and none of them ever looked like this. They’re both a little drunk, heads fuzzy from beer and subsequent mouthfuls of scotch, and Alex wants to remember her first time, doesn’t want it to be numbed by the strains and perceptions of alcohol because she wants to remember every inch and every detail. The way Maggie’s eyes look at that moment, her girlfriend’s sharp intakes of breath, and her voice. Everything.

Much to Alex’s relief, Maggie understands.

Maggie sees the look in her eyes and tells Alex that they'll get there, that they'll know when it's going to happen and how perfect it will be. Alex wants to apologise so she does. She whispers a sorry that falls all too automatically from her lips and Maggie all but rolls her eyes.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Alex." Maggie is a little out of breath as she speaks the words against her girlfriend’s cheek, fingers trailing through loose strands of Alex’s hair.

Alex wears a sort of deer in headlights look, eyes wide. "But you thought we were gonna-"

"When you kiss someone like that, it's kind of hard not to." Maggie murmurs, her cheeks reddening in the darkness as she breathes out. "But I never thought we would. Not tonight."

"Why-" Alex swallows, her voice breaking in sheer panic. "Why not tonight? Did I do something wrong?"

"Alex, are you kidding? You didn’t do anything wrong."

"You’re not just saying that, are you? I want you to be honest with me, Maggie."

"No. I just- I- I got a little carried away." A faint smile tugs away at the edge of Maggie’s lips as she voices an apology. She moves closer, brushing their noses together before she kisses Alex again, faintly, her lips lingering. Maggie pulls back, caressing Alex's cheek. "Sorry."

"Don’t be sorry. That was-" Alex pauses as she thinks of the endless lists of adjectives she could use to describe everything that had just transpired between them before she settles on the overused – and perfectly apt - "amazing, actually".

The following grin she receives in return makes it all worthwhile and Alex scores an imaginary line through another first.

Staying over.


	5. Christmas in Midvale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Travelling to Midvale, Maggie’s eyes are opened as she is welcomed into the Danvers family home for Christmas.

Travelling to Midvale on Christmas Eve is surprisingly less stressful than Alex had presumed it was going to be. She instructs Maggie to pack light – light enough for the weekend, at least – grinning non-stop when her girlfriend arrives at her apartment clutching a holdall rucksack, emblazoned with the distinctive yellowy lettering of N.C.P.D, slung loosely across one shoulder and the biggest smile Alex has ever seen.

Kara had planned to travel with them but is instead “running errands” which translates as _Supergirl_ duty, opting to skip the highways and winding roads for something far less crowded; the sky. One thing good does emerge from Kara’s temporary absence; however, because Maggie gets to blast an endless amount of _Barenaked Ladies_ songs without any groans and complaints or demands for “their only good song” (Kara’s words).

They arrive in Midvale mid-afternoon, Alex pulling into the driveway of her childhood home with a greater sense of happiness settling within since the last time she had left it behind. The curious look which spreads across Maggie’s face as she unclips her seatbelt is enough to make Alex giddy with excitement. She is, after all, introducing her girlfriend to the sleepy town in which she grew up in and Midvale – by far - is a nice contrast to the bustling confines of National City. Midvale also has slightly – and arguably - better locale and weather and Alex has kind of… missed it if she’s honest. She’s craved the beach for evening and nightly walks; feeling that the sea and the piercing storm of fresh air have been absent from her life for too long. It was a ritual Alex had developed when she was younger; to take a stroll along the dusty sand dunes of Swan Beach, with or without a surfboard tucked under her arm.

They slip out of the vehicle, slowly, taking time to breathe everything in. The sun is ablaze, hanging high in the afternoon sky, and they both feel a little overdressed in their respective jackets. Midvale’s weather has yet to let Alex down and even though it’s midway through the winter season, it’s not apparent by the warmth and glimmer of sunshine shining down from the cloudless sky. National City, however, can’t relate.

"You didn’t tell me you grew up next to that _."_ Maggie murmurs, gaping with wide eyes as she outstretches a hand, pointing and nodding to the ocean. She begins to tug off her light leather jacket, her gaze flitting back to Alex who is currently opening the right hand side door of her car. Maggie watches as Alex moves to pull their bags from the backseat.

Alex flickers with confusion as she lifts the bags, momentarily distracted until she turns around, following her girlfriend’s line of sight. Maggie is gazing towards the beach, to the crashing waves of ocean blue bumping gently against the rocks surrounding the house. Admittedly, Alex may have deliberately omitted the part about living next to the water for a special reason; for the priceless look of unfiltered awe shining bright on her girlfriend’s face. Maggie has only talked briefly about Nebraska, about Blue Springs, but Alex is confident enough to wager that it doesn’t come close to having the scenic surfing coast like Midvale does.

"I didn’t mention it once?" Alex playfully asks as she passes Maggie her holdall. Alex knows exactly what she’s doing and she’s proud because Maggie had definitely not foreseen the development. Her girlfriend knew about Midvale, of course, but had only passed through it over the years. Maggie hadn’t really explored Midvale, though, and Alex planned on changing that.

"Not once." Maggie grins, tilting her head with impressiveness. She had been played, truly. "Kept that one from me, huh?"

Eliza greets them with warm hugs on the front porch as she invites them inside her home which, for the next few days, is the epitome of a winter land grotto. Alex has to duck her head underneath swinging strands of tinsel as she moves through the frame of the door, smirking at Maggie who misses the decorations by a mile ("If you tell one more short joke, Alex, I swear…").

"Make yourself at home." Eliza tells them, welcomingly, as she closes the door, turning on her feet to face Alex. "When did you say Kara would get here?"

Alex didn’t.

"She won’t want to miss dinner so probably in the next hour or so." Alex answers, telling her mom that she’ll drop her sister a text which she follows through with.

"No one comes between your sister and food." Eliza sighs, glancing between Alex and Maggie with a spreading grin. "Not even-"

"Showing Maggie my room, mom." Alex abruptly cuts in, grabbing Maggie’s hand and tugging her girlfriend from the room before it’s possible for her to hear the following words of "threats to National City". Her mom seems to be taking a more relaxed approach to the whole secret identity thing. Alex made note to remind her later because Maggie still remains in the dark about Kara and, yes, Alex is still feeling guilty about it. Incredibly guilty.

 

* * *

 

Kara does arrive on time for dinner – as expected – mumbling on about how 'traffic was insane', covering herself during Maggie’s almost interrogation on her choice of travel arrangements. Kara had rambled on about the useless public transport system (‘my train was late’) on Christmas Eve and how she had ‘walked from the station’ to the house. Maggie, Kara had thought, appeared to wear her detective badge on her waist at all times. Maggie’s eyes appeared a little sceptical at first; however, but as Kara mumbled on and the minutes passed by, Maggie seemed to accept her story, if a little reluctant.

When Eliza and Kara are catching up in the privacy of the dining room, post-dinner, Alex whispers to Maggie about !how there’s a beach out there! and that they "should probably go see it". With excited wide eyes, they politely excuse themselves, throwing on their jackets before Alex leads her girlfriend out onto the patch of grass outside, reaching out to take Maggie by the hand.

Swan Beach isn’t far from the house - just a ten minute stroll away - and by the time both of their shoes have sank into the smooth and bumpy contours of sand, night has started to fall.

!It’s weird to think that it’s Christmas Eve.! Alex breathes, closing her eyes as the wind of the sea blows against her face. Maggie walks at her side, holding her left hand as they stride and weave a trail of footprints across the sand. The tide is starting to return.

"It doesn’t feel like it, you know?"

Maggie nods her agreement. It really doesn’t. The combination of the weather and locale was enough to throw her for a loop. It sometimes snowed in National City around December but it hadn’t this year. Midvale was much the opposite, however, brighter and less busy but Maggie thinks she could get used to it.

"I didn’t, uh, spring this on you?" Alex asks, shifting nervously on her feet as she glances away from her girlfriend. The question has been eating away at her ever since they had slid into her car this morning but it’s only now – after dinner – when Alex feels like it’s finally the right moment to ask. The beach is deserted minus a few dog walkers appearing as blurred shadows in the distance, echoes of kids playing on the other side of the beach carrying past them in the wind. Alex stares at the waves. The sun has grown low; now, disappearing behind the white of an emerging cloud. It feels like an apt setting for the confession. "You know, inviting you out to be here?"

"Alex." Maggie squeezes her girlfriend’s hand, encouraging Alex’s gaze to shift from the crashing waves of the ocean to return to the calming ones of her own. Maggie’s expression flickers with disbelief because Alex really does believe that she’s crossed a line and overstepped somewhere in the introduction to another side of her family and hometown. "Are you kidding? There’s no place I’d rather be."

"You really mean that?" Alex asks and she’s nervous, eyes glinting with the coldness of the growing wind but there’s some emotion mixed in, too.

"Yes, Alex." Maggie moves closer, sighing lightly, as she pulls Alex into a hug and her hands wrap tightly around her waist. "I do."

Maggie isn’t sure how long they hold each other for but it must be of note because when they eventually break apart, the gaining tide is much closer than it had been when they had placed their initial footsteps on the beach. She makes sure Alex is okay when they ease apart, searching for a smile in the brown pools of her girlfriend’s eyes. The sun is lower now, almost completely gone, and the low light emphasises the shimmering gleam in both of their eyes.

"Promise me one thing?" Maggie begins, after a moment, now grasping both of Alex’s hands with her own as their eyes lock. She’s searching for reassurance because Maggie needs to know, needs to find comfort and know that Alex isn’t doubting herself or kicking herself over the worst of reasons. Maggie gets it, however, how happiness can be a daunting and intimidating process because she’s still working through an endless number of those traits herself.  

Alex smiles, all teeth and genuine, and Maggie feels her heart spike and leap in her chest. Alex appears calmer now, the stress wrinkle no longer present in her forehead as her eyes gleam with a glassy brightness, illuminating in the falling darkness. "Anything."

"Don’t be like me, okay? Don’t second guess yourself… because I am so happy to be here, Alex. It’s been a long time since I-" Maggie pauses, breathes before she swallows.

Opening up and sharing segments of herself is still a fumbling challenge yet Alex’s eyes gazing back on her are so warm, opening and forgiving in return, and Maggie realises now – in this exact moment on the beach - that she’s able to muster the strength to be vulnerable without feeling bad about it, without feeling like she has to hide her face in the palm of her hands to avoid a searching gaze. Alex’s eyes aren’t intimidating, though, they’re encouraging, emitting so much patience and love that Maggie finds it a little overwhelming. Maggie clears her throat, raw with emotion at her own realisation, and she glances away, briefly, to the palm trees blowing wildly in the wind in the far off distance behind Alex’s shoulders. "It’s been a long time since I spent the holiday with someone I care about."

When Maggie’s eyes flicker back up to Alex’s, she realises that her girlfriend is about to start crying as droplets start to form, shining bright in the already shiny pools of her eyes. "I feel the same’ Alex confesses before she let’s go of Maggie’s hands, moving gently to cup her girlfriend’s face before she kisses her – kisses her on the beach where, as a teen, Alex had moped about her best friend breaking off their friendship for something which feels too silly and irrelevant in retrospect, all these years later.

She’s kissing Maggie in her hometown, holding her hand as they stride across avenues and down pathways which had once been her own personal stomping ground way, way back and everything feels unapologetically right. It fits.

They get back to the house around ten thirty, joining Kara and Eliza mid conversation in the living room.

When Maggie excuses herself to go use the bathroom and Eliza disappears to grow grab something from the kitchen, Kara slides into the vacant space next to Alex on the couch.

"So… you went to the beach with Maggie." Kara begins, letting her eyes – and wiggling eyebrows – do the talking. "On _Christmas Eve."_

"Yeah we- we did."

" _And_..?"

Alex rolls her eyes. Her sister is fishing for details. "It was good." she offers, smiling with a steady poker face. She always holds the metaphorical ace of spades especially when Kara and teasing are involved.

Kara raises a sceptical eyebrow at the way Alex had downplayed it, like the event of going to the beach with her girlfriend isn’t something to shout from the rooftops – and loud - about because ever since Alex had started dating Maggie, that’s all her sister has been doing (maybe not from rooftops, however, but maybe a balcony). "Just… _good?"_

Alex’s poker face barely holds for two seconds longer before she gasps, eyes widening almost as large as her growing grin, and her voice unfolds in an almost supersonic tempo. "Okay, I lied. It was amazing. She’s…" Alex’s voice trails off as she gushes, thinking of an endless list of adjectives she could use to describe her girlfriend as Kara prods her arm, teasing. "Maggie is amazing."

Kara throws her arms up, punching the air with an obvious victory. "I knew it!"

"Shhh, _shhh_. She’s only-" Alex’s voice lowers as she composes her voice, glancing around. "Maggie is only upstairs." Her eyes widen. Maggie, her girlfriend, is upstairs and by the spreading smirk on Kara’s face, her sister has realised this too.

" _Sharing a bed_ …" Kara singsongs, a moment later, and Alex is _so_ proud of herself for the retort she whispers back. It’s proud and confident. Fast.

"It’s not the first time." Alex smirks, glancing away from her sister as Kara’s jaw slackens. If she was wowing Kara, Alex couldn’t – and wouldn’t - stop there, oh no. "And it won’t be the last."

Kara just about manages to pick her jaw up from the floor before Maggie re-enters the room.

"So, what did I miss?" Maggie asks, blinking expectantly between the two Danvers, and Kara - lost somewhere between her shock and bewilderment - just about manages to choke out an incredibly suspicious "nothing _"_ (which is incredibly emphasised with an exclamation mark).

 

* * *

 

It’s Christmas.

It really is Christmas because when Alex stirs awake from sleep, Maggie’s eyes are shut tight and she’s almost – but not quite - snoring.

That’s not a Christmas miracle – not by any account – but her girlfriend just looks so peaceful and contented with her head cradled on the pillow to Alex’s left, covers bunched just underneath her arms. On the few occasions that they’ve shared a bed together – just shared a bed – Alex has been witness to her girlfriend’s sleep ridden face and sporadic snoring but never this because Maggie is smiling in her slumber.

Alex breathes out a deep sigh of contentment as she shifts, tugging the covers up and over her girlfriend’s shoulders. Maggie always sleeps in a loose fitting tee but Alex’s favourite? Alex’s favourite of her girlfriend’s nightwear choices are the boxer shorts her girlfriend always wears below. They expose tan skin – smooth tan skin – and Maggie’s attractiveness only seems to quadruple and quantify in nothing but those type of briefs. Alex congratulates herself on her self-control up until this moment because wow, Maggie in nightwear? A crime and one Alex would gladly do time for.

When Maggie eventually stirs awake, Alex is midway to falling back to sleep. Maggie’s breath falls across her girlfriend’s cheek as she leans in closer, sleep stained eyes peeking to see if Alex is awake. There’s a rapidly growing grin when Maggie realises that yes Alex _is_ awake – doubling when she realises that she may have woken her girlfriend up - and she closes the gap between them, lips plump and soft as she leans back to whisper a hoarse ‘morning, Danvers _'_.

There are, truly, worse ways to wake up.

When they break apart, Maggie screeches that 'it’s Christmas' and her eyes are brimming with excitement, her features pulsating with a steady glow, and Alex thinks that travelling to Midvale was worth it – if anything - for this moment alone.

They laze about in bed for another hour – nine a.m was by far too early to rise on Christmas morning – and they get lost in a growing warmth beneath the covers.

Alex surprises Maggie with a gift on top of the comforter, an hour later, a little box wrapped with a black ribbon over red paper. They had talked about gifts at the beginning of the month, Alex telling Maggie repeatedly that gifts weren’t important, that the holiday was more about the experience, about the time spent with family and the people who mattered the most, and Maggie had smiled enthusiastically at someone who finally gets it. They agreed then and there to buy each other one gift and one gift alone and, initially, it had sounded like an easy project. Alex had actually considered gifting Maggie "one of those flash grenade thingys" she keeps hinting to her about whenever they wager a pool game but that was firmly off the table ( **‘** Love not war’ Alex had said) and then Alex had stumbled upon it, _the_ gift for Maggie or – at least – she hoped.

Maggie tears away the paper gently with an unmovable smile on her face. She’s always been excited about unwrapping presents ever since she was a kid and the festive season really feels like The Twelve Days of Christmas. With the paper torn away, Maggie’s fingers encase a small black box; a jewellery box. Maggie grasps the box, shaking it gently until she hears it rattle, and she raises an amused and challenging eyebrow.

"Keeping up with the stereotypes, Danvers." Maggie comments, dryly, dimples punctuating her growing grin. "I like it."

"It’s not a ring." Alex rolls her eyes, laughing.

"I’ll try my best to mask my disappointment."

Alex laughs again as she urges her girlfriend to open the box so Maggie does. She watches as her girlfriend’s eyes take in the chain, fingers reaching out to touch the silver pendant necklace. Maggie recognises the piece of jewellery immediately.

"I realised that I was wearing this when we first met and I- I wanted you to have it."

"You're a sucker for nostalgia." Maggie comments, dimples creasing deeper. She grins as she guides the chain out from its holder in the box.

"Do you-" Alex pauses, gazing at her girlfriend with slight apprehension. "Do you like it?"

"Alex, I love it." Maggie reassures with dimples and, as appreciation goes, the expression speaks volumes. She holds the necklace out, opening the clasp with her fingers. "Help me put it on?"

A minute later, now wearing Alex’s necklace, Maggie reaches over to sneak out Alex’s gift from where she had disguised it, in the drawer of the bedside table. Maggie places the present down in the small space between them as they both face one another, sitting Indian style, over the comforter.

"I’m just gonna be upfront and honest here." Maggie begins, pushing the wrapped box in between them, her baggy white tee creasing as she shifts. The present is square in shape – book sized - and it’s heavy _,_ bouncing with a thud when it lands on the mattress. "My gift is nowhere near as good."

"Maggie." Alex begins with a sigh as she gazes at her girlfriend, playfully rolling her eyes. She tilts her head, dramatically outstretching her arms as if to further her point. "You could roll me asphalt in an envelope and I’d be happy."

" _Seriously?_ Because I could have done that."

Alex laughs, reaching out to playfully jab her girlfriend. Maggie recoils with an amused "ow!"

"Okay _maybe_ not _asphalt_ but as I told you before, gifts are gifts. Just you being here is the biggest gift of all to me and I will love anything you give me because I-" Alex freezes, catching herself mid-sentence as her eyes read the suspensive, wide eyed look, reflecting back on her from Maggie’s eyes. She can’t believe she almost said it, almost uttered the words "I love you" and they’ve been dating for approximately twenty nine days – _twenty nine days_ – and Alex is new to the whole dating thing but uttering those three, equally, heavy and important words after barely a month together was nothing short of insane.

But Alex saves herself and it’s smooth. Beyond smooth. "I’d like anything you give me."

Maggie accepts the words with a grin as she encourages Alex to unwrap her gift and Alex’s fingers make steady work of the neatly wrapped paper. She tears away the paper inch by inch until her eyes are scraping across the heavy glossiness of a hardback book; a photo album.

"You told me after we first started this; that you wanted to make better memories. You said that you couldn’t remember the last time you took a picture so I got you this." Maggie says, watching as Alex flicks open the album, pristine pages passing by her eyes in a blur. "I hope you like it."

"Maggie, I- I love it." Alex says, genuinely touched by the gesture because she remembers the conversation clearly. It had only been a few days after the initial outstretched offering of pizza at her apartment and the talk had unfolded after a round of pool in the dive bar. Maggie had listened to Alex’s ramblings for most of the night, most of them consisting of Kara and how much she missed her sister, but also about the firsts she hoped to have; the future memories, in her relationship with Maggie. "Those pages are blank just now but I wanna help you fill them." Maggie comments as Alex leafs through the pages, her girlfriend’s eyes trailing across the contents of the book. Alex was no expert but the book screamed expensive quality and it was definitely not just a standard photo album. Maggie smiles as Alex’s eyes move up from the album to meet her own. "There’s plenty of space, right?"

"Maggie…" Alex’s voice trails off because, really, she’s overcome by the gesture and her girlfriend’s words; a tag team of emotion and a heady combination. "Thank you _."_

"Any time. I’m glad you like it." Maggie grins, the muscles in her cheeks growing sore with how strong and encompassing her smile is becoming. "Now…" she begins, her eyes glinting with something Alex thinks resembles the literal festive spirit, flickering Christmas lights et al. Maggie does have a bright smile. "Get _over_ here. It’s Christmas morning. We’ve got at _least_ another half-hour to kill before we’ve gotta rise."

Alex wholeheartedly agrees by pushing aside the photo album as she moves closer, easing Maggie to lie back against the covers of the bed, hands scraping down and over her girlfriend’s tee.

They begin to kiss and Alex thinks that today is quite possibly the best Christmas morning she’s ever had in almost three decades spent in the same room in Midvale. They’re making memories.

 

* * *

 

Dinner is early, just after four, a Danvers family tradition and it’s only around an hour before that when the first of the two scheduled guests arrives.

Winn Schott is everything Alex had described him to be, Maggie thinks, when they’re introduced for the second time; both of them meeting very, very briefly a month ago in the dive bar. He’s a nerd – through and through – but he’s got an infectious smile and a laugh which Maggie instantly likes the sound of as she watches him throw his arms around Eliza for a self-proclaimed 'holiday hug'.

Maggie takes her time to observe the crowd gathering in the living room and, surprisingly, she doesn’t feel out of place. Alex is by her side as they stand, listening to Kara as she talks animatedly about how everything is good but that she feels sad because her friend James couldn’t make it (Maggie’s eyes meet Alex’s when Kara glances away and Alex mouths 'they used to date' and eyes that reflect that her sister is still very much not over it). James is spending the day at his mom’s and Alex has to glance away from her sister to pretend that the disappointment that’s currently clouding Kara’s face isn’t bringing her mood down. Alex changes the subject back to Winn and Kara emerges with a smile that says that she’s fine but Alex knows her sister too well to ever believe that. In a bid to lighten the mood, Alex encourages Kara to text James which her sister does, Kara’s face lighting up when her phone buzzes with an instant reply. James hopes they have a great day.

The doorbell chimes and Eliza moves to open it, the door swinging wide to reveal a smiling J’onn standing on the porch. He outstretches an offer of a bottle of wine, shaking a bag of gifts with his other hand.

"Sorry I’m late." J’onn greets, grinning as he smooths out a crease on his black suit jacket. "Bad traffic. Happy holidays."

Eliza ushers him through the door before she pulls J’onn into a hug. "I’m so glad you could join us for dinner, J’onn."

"Wouldn’t miss it. I hear there’s an offering of sticky toffee pudding."

Eventually, when Winn and J’onn have both settled in and introductions are officially over, both guests slide down onto the comfort of the couch with Kara and Eliza joining them at their sides. As they do so, Alex and Maggie find themselves slipping into the confines of the kitchen, Alex informing the others that they’re going to check on dinner but it’s a small white lie because they aren’t, oh no. Alex is sneaking off so she can kiss her girlfriend, maybe a make out if the acquired window of opportunity permitted.

"Do they know about us?" Maggie asks, her voice a whisper, when they’re safely in the privacy of the kitchen and Alex is three seconds away from kissing her. Maggie’s voice is calm and understanding and Alex adds it to the ever growing list of qualities her girlfriend exudes just by breathing. She wonders exactly how her girlfriend has deduced that she hasn’t told Winn or J’onn about their relationship in the span of an introductory fifteen minutes before Alex remembers - with a light-bulb moment - that her girlfriend is a qualified detective for a reason.

Alex shakes her head. No she hasn’t told J’onn or Winn about their relationship, about her freshly uncovered sexuality. It’s not a big deal because Winn is a close friend and he’s caring and sweet. The little cousin Alex never had so, really, Alex should have confided in him by this point it’s just that she hasn’t. The same courtesy should have been extended to J’onn; to the boss who was more surrogate father figure than authoritarian most days.

"Not yet." Alex offers, murmuring, and she’s nervous. "I’ve been meaning to but…" Alex’s voice trails off, her gaze shifting towards the floor in something which resembles a lot like shame. Maggie pulls Alex’s eyes back up to meet her own by gently cupping her face, caressing her cheeks, as she inches closer. Maggie gets it, of course, understands the whole coming out thing and how tiring it can become to repeatedly tell your friends and family over and over and over again.

"Alex, there’s no pressure to tell them or anyone about us." Maggie coos, softly. "I just wondered because Winn looked… sort of surprised to see me here."

"I’ll tell Winn if you want me to." Alex retorts, almost in automation, and her voice is low with her gaze locked with Maggie’s. "I’ll go out there right now and tell them both if you w-"

"Alex, I want you to tell them but only when you’re comfortable with doing that, okay? I’d never ever force you to do that and I’m definitely not rushing you. I only asked because I thought you had already told Winn. He looked a little surprised to see me here which makes sense if he thinks we’re just friends."

"Are you sure? I could-"

Maggie breathes out deep with a sigh. "I’m more than sure, Alex. Now, please stop overthinking, okay? I want you to enjoy the holiday, not stress about it." Maggie smiles, closing the gap between them with a soft, reassuring kiss. When she pulls back, she gently touches Alex’s cheeks, playfully biting her lip. "And I’ll _try_ and cut back on the PDA. Wouldn’t want them getting ideas about us…" The grin Maggie receives in return at the comment fills her with a warm dose of happiness and she leans in closer, her voice trailing gently across Alex’s lips in a cool, breathy whisper."My best, at least. No promises."

Alex swallows, her breath wavering. The closeness of her girlfriend isn’t exactly aiding on the whole “just friends” façade they’re trying their very best to live up to although they’re alone. Maggie’s hands are trailing down her sides, now, and Alex swears that her heart skips a beat while her patience crumbles.

Her patience crumbles, crashing completely to the floor like the collapse of a too-skilled _Jenga_ tower, one which Alex has definitely spent time building and maintaining.

"Kiss me, now _."_

"You can’t control yourself around, me, huh?" Maggie whispers. Alex’s hands are now sliding underneath her shirt, hinting at something they probably shouldn’t be doing. Maggie grins as she leans in closer because the answer to her question is splayed out on her girlfriend’s face. Maggie opts to slightly rephrase Alex’s own choice of words from when they had first kissed post-Thanksgiving, back in November. She’s a sucker for nostalgia, through and through.

"That’s what I’m getting from this."

Alex reacts by a firm _yes_ pressed against her girlfriend’s lips as she tugs Maggie in closer, creasing her shirt in the process.

Later, when dinner is over and crackers have been pulled, they find themselves sitting in the living room, laughing and a little drunk. The alcohol has been steadfast – a standard for the afternoon – and everyone is tipsy. In a momentary pause, when Eliza disappears upstairs and Winn and Kara are left sitting across from where they’re both seated with misshapen and half-torn paper hats, Maggie slips into the kitchen to "search out more booze" while Alex finds her gaze shifting across to meet J’onn’s. He’s sat on the seater in the far corner, distant and quiet, his fingers grasping a soft drink and he’s smiling over; the genuine smile which Alex knows only ever crosses his face when he’s proud of something. Alex flutters with warmth when she realises that J’onn’s smile is reflected on herself, the warmth travelling sharply to her heart in realisation, because there’s so much love shimmering in his eyes and it’s blinding. Alex hasn’t said those particular words to J’onn yet, isn’t sure how to broach the subject of _hey, I’m gay and this is my girlfriend Maggie_ without spiralling in a breakdown full of nerves that want to send her running from the room in a blur, from her boss who holds so much more presence than just a sole authority figure in her life.

J’onn’s eyes shine bright with happiness across the room, uttering wordlessly _I’m happy for you_ and Alex returns his smile, touched, with an equally silent _thank you_. Alex isn’t sure if J’onn knows knows but in this moment, she’s happy to be suspended somewhere in limbo because Alex knows that they’ll get there at some point. J’onn is psychic after all.

Alex is pulled from her thoughts at the re-emergence of her mom and smiles as J’onn gets up to follow her into the kitchen. He passes by Maggie in the process, giving her a playful warning about the "wonders of alcohol" because she’s holding two glasses of something lethal and Maggie grins a dimpled smile in return. As Alex glances away, her eyes trail around the room as she takes time to breathe the night in. Winn and Kara are sat deep in chatter next to one another on the opposite seater and Alex swears that they’re talking about her. She grins when Maggie returns to her side, reaching out to caress her arm, forgetting about their promise of reduced PDA in front of the others but Kara and Winn appear to be too lost in conversation with one another to take notice.

As Alex takes the outstretched glass on offer, Maggie inches closer, leaning in just close enough to her ear to whisper "you have no idea how much I wanna kiss you right now" and Alex swallows a deep intake of breath because, yeah, she _kind_ of has an idea. She breathes out, tries to contain the way in which the words dislodge an insistence and urge within herself, just managing enough strength to choke out a teasing "later" in return. Maggie seems to accept the promise as she slides down into the space next to her, raising her glass to toast.

The night feels perfect and light and there’s nowhere else Alex would rather be.

 

* * *

 

The days spent post-Christmas are lazy and slow and it’s during the drive back from Midvale on the following Monday afternoon, when Maggie invites Alex back to her apartment for dinner. Between the twenty sixth and the thirty first, they are inseparable.

Alex stays most nights if they’re hanging out at Maggie’s apartment and vice-versa, when Maggie is over at her own. The weekend spent in Midvale only existed to solidify them together and they’re closer now, more in sync. While Maggie is preparing dinner for the night, she admits to herself that she isn’t sure if she’s ever felt this confident in a developing relationship. She’s always had a stunted relationship with happiness, finding the sentiment to be a double edged sword and one which almost always comes hand in hand with some kind of personal sacrifice.

But not with Alex. Alex is patience and understanding. Alex is full body hugs and lingering kisses and the ever tugging at her heart feeling that this – their relationship – is going to last. Maggie’s insecurities are deep rooted within herself but with Alex, things feel different, like she's actively being shaped and changed but for the better.

New Year creeps around and Alex invites Maggie to Kara’s annual countdown party. The night starts out fun with drinks poured before board games and Maggie is reintroduced to both Winn Schott and James Olsen. James is warm and fun, joking with Maggie that they could wipe the board if they both teamed up together (Maggie is kind of _the_ property magnet of _Monopoly_ ) and the thought just makes her laugh. These dorks play board games on New Year’s Eve.

By the time it’s two minutes to midnight, Maggie – along with the others – is drunk. 2017 is welcomed in by hollowed cheers and hoots and Maggie barely resists the urge to pull Alex in until her lips meet her own. Alex must share the sentiment because while they’re hugging and Alex’s head is resting tightly against her shoulder, Maggie distinctively hears the whispered and urgent words of "wanna get outta here?"

They inch back from one another and Maggie gazes into her girlfriend’s eyes. She returns an enthusiastic but unspoken _yes_ before they turn around in sync to wish the others a happy new year. They eventually slip out of the apartment for some professed “fresh air” but Kara knows their plan, sees it clearly even through the haze of alcohol, as she merrily tells them to have fun.

Alex’s back hits the corridor of the landing as soon as Maggie closes the door and it’s only then, when Alex realises that Maggie is her very first kiss of the new year. Sneaking around the others – pretending to be just friends – has been a challenge, if a fun one, but they’ve definitely missed being able to do this, to openly show each other affection.

"It’s almost like you want us to get caught." Alex whispers between kisses as Maggie melts into her. She is, of course, referencing just how close they are to her sister’s apartment. There’s risk involved and if Alex is being honest, she likes it, likes the fact that they could be caught at any given moment if James happened to swing the door wide or if Winn happened to gaze through the spy hole. It’s risky and it fans the flames of attraction and desire deep within. Alex kisses her girlfriend, harder, smiling against Maggie’s lips.

" _Me?"_ Maggie replies, breathlessly, between the steady collision of lips. "Never."

Alex smiles into the following kiss, twisting their positions around, as she presses Maggie into the coolness of the corridor wall. Maggie’s head lolls back when Alex’s lips ease away from her lips, tracing down her jaw then to her neck and all thoughts of getting caught fade into the background of her mind because everything feels so good _._ She hears the crackle and ripple of fireworks exploding in the distance but Maggie isn’t sure if the noise is solely from the celebrations unfolding throughout the city.

Alex’s lips trail up to meet her own again, kissing over and over.

2017, Maggie thinks, just got off to a hell of a start.


	6. January Date Nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a new year on the horizon, Alex sets about crossing off more firsts with Maggie.

Returning to work falls mid-week in the first week of January. The DEO is back in business and things are just as busy at the N.C.P.D, if not busier.

Maggie books two perps in her first day alone; spending most of Tuesday afternoon in the stuffy confines of the main interrogation room as she mines out a confession from another suspect with her partner McConnell by her side. Stepping back into her role falls easy. The festive break had been good, great even, but Maggie feels happy to be back. The bullpen is absent from decorations, now, and Maggie can no longer pretend that she doesn’t miss the red and gold strands of tinsel wrapped and interwoven loosely between chairs and desks. The decorations had gifted the usual coffee stained and donut crumbed room with a warmth and a sprinkle of shine. The festive holiday will always be Maggie’s favourite time of year.

By the time the working day is over, and Maggie is stepping through the doorway into her apartment, her shoulders hang heavy and weary with tiredness. Alex comes over post-dinner as something urgent had crept up on her first day back so they spend the evening lazing in the comfort of the couch and seater, listening to the falling rain ricocheting off the main window to the streets and sidewalks a few stories below. It’s been raining non-stop since the early afternoon and the growing grey sky has placed a literal damper on both of their moods. It seems like the post-festivities and New Year celebrations are now officially over.

"How was your day?" Alex asks - an hour in - between a make out session that’s briefly on pause. The falling rain is the only sound which punctuates the brief interlude of the posed question as they sit, wrapped up in one another, on the seater, soft cushions previously fallen to the floor. January rain appears to be a welcoming backdrop for the moments when they find themselves like this, casting an ambience that’s apt and perfect for staying in. The room is perfectly lit in low light and it’s on evenings like this when Alex can fully appreciate how homely her girlfriend’s apartment feels.

"Eventful." Maggie answers, pressing her lips firmly against Alex’s. She trails a hand, lazily, through her girlfriend’s hair, smiling as Alex reacts by shifting closer. Maggie knows she should add more, knowing that Alex is searching for details and added adjectives, but her attention is deep rooted on the comfort of lips and how soft Alex’s feel between her own. She’s not sure how this all began to unfold; the routine of post-dinner make outs, but Maggie definitely doesn’t want them to end.

Alex’s eyelids flutter as she closes her eyes, swallowing down a deep breath that reflects equal anticipation and provocation. It’s still overwhelming; sometimes, how close they’ve grown in the developing weeks. Alex has her hands laced in Maggie’s hair, now, trailing through sleek strands with appreciation and comfort. They’re so close now, well in each other’s spaces, a clean cut intimacy that shines bright because the passing weeks have now evolved into months and - combined - they solidify trust, care and, most dauntingly, love. Maybe that was the heaviest word of the growing intimacy; love. Four letters yet such a powerful word, both in meaning and in reality. Love meant something. It mattered. It was reassuring and scary – in equal measure – at exactly the same time and at the same tempo because here they are, growing; both in terms as a couple and completely standalone. Love was just the icing on the cake to it all; the dotted _i_ or the crossed _t_. Alex finds herself continuously gaining confidence as she surfs the crashing waves of the coming out process, finally reaching a cornerstone where she finds herself smiling more - Alex would even admit that herself - because she’s happy. Maggie had stumbled into a new world - a new family of sorts – in a line running in conjunction with Alex’s, finding her own version of a similar strand of happiness in the process.

Maggie tilts Alex’s head as she inches closer – not quite close enough, though – until her breath is trailing a cool and mesmerising puff of air against her girlfriend’s lips. "How was yours?" she asks and her voice is a little hoarse, tainted by the events which had transpired during her return to work. Alex’s eyes remain closed, her breath wavering as she hovers closer. Maggie’s fingers are gliding through her hair and they’re nothing short of distracting and hypnotic as they move to settle in position on the nape of her neck.

"Eventful."

Maggie sucks in a light chuckle, moving closer, her lips gently bumping across Alex’s. They’re not quite kissing but it’s only a matter of time. "You ever thought about giving it all up, your job?"

Alex has, once or twice. She’s never shared that particular information with anyone before, though, not even Kara. Alex loves her job – and enjoys it - but like everything else, it sways with an ever changing variation of highs and lows. Making a difference to the safety of the city and - consequently - the world, however, kind of made up for the less shiny parts belonging to the government agency situated slap bang in the heart of the city.

" _Hmm,_ once or twice." Alex pauses, distractedly, when she feels Maggie’s lips press against her own seemingly out of nowhere. Her girlfriend pulls back a moment later and Alex’s eyes flicker open as Maggie rests against her forehead with her own.

"Have you… ever thought about it?" Alex pauses, finding her voice as she clings to her girlfriend. "Trading in your badge?"

Maggie breathes out, heavily, and Alex knows there’s a story or two to be found if her girlfriend’s sigh of hesitation is anything to go on. The sigh echoes an admission of traumatising cases, of the ones that got away, but Alex won’t pry. She can only imagine the things that her girlfriend’s eyes have witnessed while working with the Science Police. If Maggie wanted to share, to open up, then she would but it would be in her own time. Alex would always respect that.

"I could never leave it behind. It means too much to me’ Maggie answers. "And anyway, what else would I do, huh? Get a job working retail?" Maggie pauses, picturing the thought. It’s not something she ever wants to think about, really. Actually, the thought fills her with trepidation and fear more than anything else and she shivers. "It just wouldn’t work."

"You could always be a clerk." Alex offers, grinning at the thought of her girlfriend in a commercial uniform with a name badge pinned to her shirt and a price gun in place of her girlfriend’s actual firearm. It’s an amusing thought and Alex scrunches her face, beaming, as she tells her girlfriend that she would look great in uniform.

"Not gonna happen." Maggie murmurs, kissing Alex, short and lingering before she eases back. "Ever."

Alex surges forward again, bringing their lips together, as her hands slide from Maggie’s hair, opting to scale across and down the material of her girlfriend’s denim shirt. Maggie’s tucked in button up is quickly dislodged from its neatness tucked in at her waist, over dark blue jeans and a belt, as Alex tugs it up until it creases. Maggie lets out a small gasp of surprise at the feeling of Alex’s cool palms settling in to brush across her abdomen - pressing into the soft skin with care and appreciation - and her small gasp is followed up by a swipe of tongue as Alex eases her back into the firmness of the seater. They break apart; briefly, Maggie following suit before Alex shifts as she manoeuvres into her girlfriend’s lap.

"We’ll both need normal jobs if we ever decide to leave and retire." Alex flirts, fluttering her eyelashes as she kisses her girlfriend, faintly, shifting as she gets comfortable. "Maybe I can convince you to consider it."

"To retire and become a clerk?" Maggie asks, amused and out of breath, as she grips her girlfriend tightly at her hips. The thought is genuinely ridiculous and extremely Alex. Maggie snorts. "Before or after hell freezes over?"

It’s a bet of sorts - a wager - and one Alex will not let slide. Oh no. "Maybe I can help change your mind."

Maggie receives a coy smile in turn as she watches – and feels – her girlfriend lean back in her lap. There’s a blur of movement as Alex frees herself from her sweater by pulling it over her head in a quick-fire motion – one that’s a sort of blink and you’ll miss it moment - before it’s tossed lazily to the floor. Alex gazes at Maggie with a come hither motion as her hands slowly scale up – slowly and exaggeratedly – over the fine material of her denim cotton shirt. Maggie’s eyes shut tight as she feels the insistent tug and pull as Alex’s fingers inch upwards to pop open her collar and it’s extremely unfair because now her vision is absent from her girlfriend in a tight fitting push-up bra that she just knows Alex wore on purpose.

Alex begins to unfasten the buttons of her shirt, one by one, only stopping halfway down her chest. She grips the material of the shirt, stretching it wide from Maggie’s shoulders but not off. Maggie’s eyes are still closed but she can feel the cool puffs of her girlfriend’s breath gravitating ever closer - inching in towards her neck - and oh, Alex’s lips are right there but suddenly she isn’t close enough. Maggie’s head lolls back into the firmness of her seater, extending her neck back in the process, because Alex is kissing across the soft expanse of skin with cool lips. Alex must enjoy the development, too, because now her girlfriend has better access, sliding her hands under her button up, as she presses her lips against tan skin with meaning and with a little more emphasis, eliciting a moan from her girlfriend. Maggie – it unfolds – is really into that.

Alex’s tongue collides very faintly with Maggie’s pulse point before she presses down, lips encasing the skin, as she begins to softly suck. Her girlfriend reacts with a jolt and a deep murmur of "yes" before Alex releases the skin, smoothing it over with a wet dab of her tongue. Her hands are skimming across Maggie’s abs, more directly now, her fingernails tracing across the smooth skin and definitions of muscles. Maggie has realised with time that Alex has catalogued a vast number of things ever since they began navigating through the ever increasing and, occasional, cloudy progression of intimacy. Maggie has only marked her girlfriend - once or twice - with a hickey and mostly by accident when making out grew a little out of hand and handsy but it arrived as no surprise that Alex would be even more effective at returning the same. It was a natural gravitation. Of course she would.

"You’re killing me, Alex." Maggie manages to whisper, her voice tinged with arousal and hinted with an echo of frustration. She swallows a deep gasp as Alex’s breath nears closer, again, trickling across her neck because in all honesty, it tickles.

"C’mon," Alex breathes in and she’s unable to delay the exuded enjoyment of their current situation from filtering into her voice, enriching it with something which sounds like the figurative sunshine of a smile. "You know it’d be a great way to go."

Maggie can’t lie there, in fact, she thinks it would be nothing short of a dream if she were to depart in this very moment. Death by a beautiful woman; there were, surely, worse ways to go. Death by Alex, however, if it had to happen, Maggie would more than happily accept. She can think of an infinite number of worse ways to go, a handful of them already witnessed by her eyes in her time acquired with a badge. The Science Police, through the years - have uncovered some horrors and sometimes, whenever Maggie blinks, she still sees the silhouettes, the faded remnants of old crime scenes and case files, forever haunting her in a way which is reminiscent of an optical illusion.

Maggie is pulled out of her momentary distraction as Alex’s lips land firm against her skin, attacking her neck again, kissing and licking which eventually morphs into sucking, and yes, there’s definitely going to be a mark present in the morning. It’s not like her girlfriend is doing anything to prevent such a corruption, much the opposite. Alex is making sure that she leaves a remnant of where her lips once touched during the current developments of the night.

When Alex is content with the dark blotch which is now spreading across her girlfriend’s neck, darkening as the seconds tick past, she inches back. She shifts slightly, moving to press faint and wet kisses to Maggie’s jaw, finally coming to rest on her girlfriend’s lips in a conclusion which feels fitting for the evening. Alex’s pupils are blown wide, her veins perpetuating with a rush of want she’s never experienced before. It feels endless like it’s on an infinite loop, a bottomless pit brimming with attraction and need. Alex, however, isn’t alone. Maggie holds an unreadable expression – one which is lost somewhere between take me and I can’t take anymore – and she’s breathless with equally dry lips and Alex is proud because she did that.

Maggie’s eyes flicker open as her girlfriend sits back in her lap, hands continuing to palm across her stomach. There’s a lot to take in with tonight’s post-dinner make out and Maggie thinks that the current situation – Alex in her lap _–_ is made ten times hotter by the fact that she’s presently still in her – mostly buttoned – shirt, in the denim material which had only been stretched and creased to accommodate her girlfriend’s attack.

"We should wager more often." Maggie murmurs, inwardly, when she regains her voice, a minute or so later. Her heart is beating two speeds too fast, her body a mass rush of adrenaline and need. Alex perks up, proud and confident, as she wraps her arms around Maggie’s neck. It’s the first time she’s ever left her girlfriend with a mark – officially a hickey - and Alex can’t delay the sheen of emerging proudness which shimmers directly onto her expression because she’s been wanting to do that for a while. "But I’m _never_ retiring’ Maggie grinds out, grinning. "Not to become a clerk. It’s just- it’s never happening. I’ll be a cop ‘till I’m seventy five. They’ll have to pension me off just to get me to leave."

Alex laughs at the thought, of seventy five year old Maggie Sawyer being ushered from the precinct, hobbling away with a walking stick, and she grins. They’re discussing their future and it actually feels like they have a future, one that’s not so silently implied to be shared together.

"So I’ll be meeting you at the retirement home." Alex murmurs, beaming as she runs her hands through her girlfriend’s hair before she inches them down to smooth out Maggie’s stretched and half-buttoned shirt. "That’s what I’m getting from this." Alex pauses, briefly, as she thinks. "I’m sure we’ll be able to fix the situation. I mean, we’ll both still have our guns."

Maggie throws her head back as she starts to laugh. Now that was an idea she could get behind.

"It’s meant to be, Danvers." Maggie drawls as she shifts, leaning in to kiss Alex as her girlfriend loops her arms back around her neck. "Written in the stars."

 

* * *

 

Alex spends most of Wednesday afternoon hot on the trail of a rogue alien, weaving throughout the streets of National City in support to a flying Supergirl, on her rumbling Ducati. The sky is grey today, although absent from rain, but the city air feels cold as the wind whips up and flutters against the rigidness of Alex’s brown leather jacket.

They eventually get the Maaldorian but not before a fight and as Supergirl returns with the alien perp in hand, Alex runs towards them - on the outskirts of a warehouse - with her gun extended. She wears an irritated expression because _this guy_ had been hard work. Things don’t get any better from there because when Alex returns to the DEO lot and parks her bike in a quiet spot at the far end corner of the underground garage - removing her helmet as she steps off her Ducati - her right hand shoulder twinges with a sudden sting of pain and she hisses, clutching her helmet in her hands.

She’s strained a muscle. Great.

Alex smiles through the pain, though. She talks to J’onn like the sudden twinge thrashing in the centre of her shoulder blade isn’t present or painful.

"Get someone to take a look at that." J’onn tells her, nodding to her shoulder, after they’ve debriefed.

Alex flickers with surprise and immediately moves her hand away from her shoulder. She has been caught red handed but then again J’onn is also psychic and her sore shoulder isn’t the only thought which has been reverberating around her mind this afternoon. Her thoughts have been echoing reruns of the previous night, of making out with Maggie and lips on necks, and Alex can’t slow the utterly colourless look of panic from clouding her face because her thoughts have been loud, beyond loud. J’onn must know about Maggie by now because most of Alex’s thoughts – if not all of them - have been centred on her girlfriend and the developing intimacy which is brewing between them.

Alex takes a moment to slow her breath, to tune it back to a rate which is manageable enough to relax her shoulders, before she nods and tells J’onn she’ll check in with medical.

"I should think so, Alex." J’onn tells her, a growing smile emerging on his face. "Now, go. Get checked. I need my best agent operating at her very top level."

Leaving J’onn behind at the central desk, Alex glances down as she strides away because she feels a familiar pang of guilt shoot throughout her. The feeling bubbles to the forefront of her mind, a slight and momentary distraction to the pain that’s currently tingling like a pinprick in her shoulder, because Alex knows she should have confided in her boss and sometimes surrogate father figure by now. J’onn is understanding and is the literal definition of patience but most importantly, he’s a permanent fixture in a sometimes temporary world so Alex should have told him by this point, it’s just that she hasn’t. There are a growing number of reasons for why she hasn’t confided in J’onn but the one which stands out the most to Alex - in tall bold letters - is that she just hasn’t found the right… moment. No, really, she hasn’t. Coming out has been a hard and continuous hurdle because it has yet to stop, or slow, and Alex wonders if it ever will. Kara had been the very first to hear Alex voice aloud _those_ feelings and then the very same heaviness had fallen on to her mom; her mom who had felt like she was going to be the hardest to confide in but who had, in turn, been the easiest. J’onn, however, was lost in a portal between Kara and her mom. He ranked even higher in Alex’s imaginary _coming out to your family and friends_ points board she’s dreamt up in her head.

Alex walks to the medical bay with a lot more than muscle strain wearing on her mind. When she returns to her apartment after finishing for the day, Maggie greets her just after six with a box of pizza and a grin; a grin which Alex returns but nowhere near as strongly. Maggie’s expression creases with worry as she steps inside, doubling when Alex moves to close her apartment door, because her girlfriend physically winces.

"Hey, you okay?"

Alex thinks about pretending and downplays the truth as she turns back around from the door, twisting her shoulder in the process. She doesn’t want Maggie to worry. "Uh, yeah. It’s just a- just a bruise." Alex replies, forcing a too bright smile for the stabbing pain which cuts through her shoulder in a sudden jab of coldness. She hisses and recoils in ache and Maggie raises an eyebrow, clutching the pizza box against her chest. It doesn’t appear to be just a bruise.

"Alex…"

" _Okay."_  Alex sighs, tired of the hammering and insurgent pain currently attacking her shoulder blade. The painkillers she had doped herself up on at the DEO appeared to have been futile in their attempts at numbing the pain because the sting was ever sharp and present each time she moved her shoulders. "Maybe it’s more thana bruise."

Maggie deposits the pizza box on the kitchen island, her face crossing with worry as she shrugs off her leather jacket, folding it down on the seater. "What happened?"

Alex tells Maggie about the day long chase as they start to bite into slices of pizza, telling her girlfriend about her bike and the fight which had concluded at an old abandoned warehouse, leaving her with a memento in the form of a strained muscle.

"And here I thought you Navy Seals were indestructible." Maggie quips, over the table, as she finishes the last bite of her final slice. She watches as her girlfriend rubs her shoulders, Alex’s expression flickering with momentary annoyance at the teasing remark because her girlfriend sounds too amused at her current and very painful situation. As if on cue, Alex whimpers at the appearance of a sudden twinge of pain - in the same place as before - in the centre of her right hand shoulder blade and Maggie closes the empty pizza box, no longer looking or sounding amused. She gazes at Alex, wiping her hands on a napkin, her eyes shining bright as she beckons her girlfriend over.

" _What?’"_ Alex asks, confused.

Maggie tilts her head and she beams. "You ever heard of a massage, Danvers?"

Alex has, of course, but in the moment she finds herself blinking as she rubs her shoulder again, the pain ever emphasized. She gazes at her girlfriend and finds that her crankiness dulls in the process, watching as Maggie’s expression flickers with one of amusement before her girlfriend quips that "they do wonders for the soul". Alex all but rolls her eyes.

"Is that right? What do _you_ know about massages?"

The seed has been planted, however, because now Alex is beyond curious as to her girlfriend’s retort. Maggie smirks, dimples falling into place, always the dimples. "Well, you wanna find out?"

Alex does, more than anything she’s ever wished for this side of the millennium. Her girlfriend is wearing a look of bliss and equal curiosity and somewhere between appreciating both of those sentiments, Alex finds herself murmuring an affirmative of "yeah". They move from the table to the seater and Maggie coaxes Alex down, gently, to sit in front of her as she tells her girlfriend that it would be better if she took her shirt off. Of course it would.

Alex starts to unbutton her grey, loose fitting shirt, losing all self-consciousness in the process. It’s not the first time she’s found herself in the situation and it definitely won’t be the last, not if their nightly make out sessions are anything to go by. As Alex tugs the material away, she feels Maggie shift closer and she glances around, a little more nervous than she had previously anticipated. Her girlfriend is rolling her sliding sleeves back, exposing a shiny watch and a rich expanse of skin.

"You said it was your shoulder blade?"

Alex nods, swallowing. "The right one."

"The right one." Maggie echoes in a whisper, as she inches closer, hands reaching out to caress Alex’s back before they gravitate up and towards her shoulder blades. Maggie’s breath trickles across her neck and Alex feels her skin begin to cover with a trailing storm of goosebumps, shivering as her girlfriend’s touch trails faintly across her bra strap. Maggie's hands are warm but they’re also soft and firm and Alex struggles to breath as her girlfriend's hands move gently across the outline of her collarbone.

"Where?"

Alex closes her eyes, biting her lip as Maggie’s hands start to rub, to massage.

" _There._ That’s-" Alex swallows as the firmness of the feeling clouds her within. " _That’s good._ "

" _Yeah?"_  Maggie asks and Alex can’t see her girlfriend but she knows from the tone her voice carries that her girlfriend is smiling behind her.

Alex feels herself drifting – eyes remaining closed - as Maggie’s hands continue to work, gently moving over and into particular knots, taking time to ask her girlfriend ‘does this feel okay?’ and ‘what about this?’ and Alex has no clue how she manages to check in and respond coherently at each prompt because everything feels amazing, like Maggie has more than her hands walking the pain away with every touch _._ Alex didn't particular foresee this happening, her girlfriend offering to give her a massage, but maybe it’s exactly what she needed. Maggie’s hands feel like salvation and it’s not an exaggeration, not in the slightest. Alex crosses a line through the stray thought in her head as she corrects herself. Maggie’s hands _are_ salvation.

"You're really good at this' Alex murmurs, absentmindedly, eyes closed with her neck extended and to the side. Her voice is raw bliss as Maggie's hands continue – all warm and soft - moving across her shoulders as they ease into the supple skin and muscle. Her girlfriend’s following laugh is all air - ticklish against her neck - and Maggie leans in, closer, her breath falling cool against the growing burn of Alex’s neck and back.

"Guess I'm just good with my hands." Alex feels a hotness trickle across her skin and she hopes that it slows before Maggie feels it – literally – at the edge of her fingertips because her girlfriend is scaling across her shoulders with a calculated provocation. Maggie's index finger presses into a particular bumpy knot and Alex barely manages to catch herself before she voices the pleasurable moan she's practically screaming inside. "And my fingers."

Alex swallows because yes, yes her mind went there and by the looks of things, she isn’t alone. Maggie sounds proud of her chosen words as she presses her lips faintly to Alex’s neck, evoking the desired reaction of a shiver because now Alex has a lot of thoughts and not all of them are entirely innocent. Maggie moves her lips away, hands firmly encasing both of Alex’s shoulders, scaling across them with comfort.

"Any better?"

Incredibly, Alex does feel better. It would be hard not to. The pain in her shoulder appears to have been dulled by her girlfriend's touch and it feels incredible because Alex has never realised before that a massage could ever come close to feeling like that. Maggie is right; she does possess a skill with her hands because they had been powerful enough to numb and relax her body in the best of ways, inducing a warm feeling of relaxation which is currently reverberating throughout.

"Yeah." Alex breathes, rubbing her shoulder as she shifts, turning around to face her girlfriend. " _Thanks."_

Alex expresses her full gratitude by closing the gap between them. She kisses Maggie until she’s breathless; breathless for the best of reasons as she eases her girlfriend back against the support of the seater.

Maggie’s shirt hits the floor not a moment later, landing in a crumpled heap on top of Alex’s own.

It’s a good night.

 

* * *

 

Alex has sat perched behind a motorcycle for many years but Maggie’s Triumph Bonneville T100 may have displaced some long forgotten bike envy from deep within because it’s just so fast.

The bright lights of the city pass by in a colourful blur because night has fallen and the sky is growing dark with the wind whipping against them as Alex clings on to Maggie from behind. Her girlfriend is a talented driver, of course, as she swerves, veering to the left and then to the right as they snake and weave throughout the concrete jungle. There’s something cathartic about driving through the city at night. The buildings emerge less clerical yet more eerie and ghostly. Even the CatCo World Media sign shimmers less imposingly as it grows ever distant as they whizz by.

They really have become _that_ couple because not only are they riding together tonight but they’re also wearing almost identical brown leather jackets. They look good, though, Alex thinks, so maybe the cliché isn’t too encompassing. This isn’t exactly how she pictured spending Friday night but Alex isn’t complaining. Not in the slightest. She has no idea where they’re going, though, only that it’s a surprise and Maggie has yet to let her down with those.

Maggie exits the city by a connecting bridge, so it’s goodbye to National City for the time being as they speed across a span of water. Alex begins to get an idea of what her surprise entails because when they reach the end of the bridge, crossing into a vast stretch of road, Maggie begins to slow. They’re cruising next to hills now and Alex recognises the viewpoint through her visor but she’s never stepped foot on it before. Kara has, though, so Alex has only heard about the hill that overlooks the city from her sister and various _Visit National City_ propaganda (sometimes, Alex muses, they’re one in the same).

It’s a little dusty as Maggie turns, slowly, accelerating as they begin the long climb of the inclination. The track is well worn but the hill looks deserted tonight, even with a few fresh wheel imprints deeply lodged in the sand. When they reach the flat at the top, Maggie drives carefully and steadily as she parks beside a swaying tree. The engine cuts off a moment later and Alex shifts as she lets go of her girlfriend’s waist, moving to step off the bike.

It’s quiet up here, away from the city, overlooking the city. Alex pulls off her helmet, running a hand through her messy hair as her gaze shifts to Maggie who is mirroring her actions.

"You ever been up here before?" Maggie asks as she takes Alex’s helmet from her hands, placing the visors down on top of her bike. She’s a little nervous at the question she’s posed because she hopes - more than anything - that Alex hasn’t visited the viewpoint because Maggie wants it to be another first; to show Alex her hidden locale for when city life grows too heavy and submerging because there was, truly, something special about the secluded spot. Much to Maggie’s happiness, Alex tells her no, that she’s never seen the city from this side of the water or from this height.

"I always drive up here whenever I find myself in need of a breather." Maggie smiles as the city lights reflect in Alex’s eyes, as bright as the stars shine high in the sky. She reaches out to take her girlfriend’s hand, interlacing their fingers together. "Soothes the soul, you know?"

They walk right to the far edge, Alex’s boots kicking up a dusty cloud of sand as they walk hand in hand. The city lights shimmer across the water, looking a tone sharper from this distance and height, like a desktop screensaver as they gaze towards the city they both call home.

"It’s… breathtaking."

Maggie’s face lights up. "You like?"

"Maggie, it’s… perfect." Alex says, switching up their handhold to wrap an arm around Maggie’s waist. She isn’t solely talking about the scenery, though; Alex is talking in general about the night.

"You should be here at sunset." Maggie adds, resting her head against Alex’s shoulder.

"Do you _ever_ sleep?" Alex asks, amused. She can only imagine how great the view would look early in the morning with the sun setting in a cloudless sky. Maybe she would get around to sneaking that date night on Maggie in the distant future.

"Not when there are views like that. _"_  Maggie pauses before her voice dips to sugar-coat itself in mild flirtation. Her gaze flits back to Alex, her eyes scaling down and across her girlfriend. She squeezes her girlfriend’s waist with an obvious appreciation. "Although, you’re not too bad yourself."

" _Oh yeah?"_

Maggie nods, beaming as her eyes flicker into fire with flames of admiration and flirtation. "You give arm candy a whole new agenda."

It’s dark and yet, Maggie is ever aware of the flush of pink that spreads across Alex’s cheeks, like a splash of colour dilutes in water, because it’s adorable.

"You’re on my arm." Alex tells her, exaggerating her point by squeezing her girlfriend’s waist. She grins, tilting her head as she wets her bottom lip with a dab of her tongue. "The only candy I can see here is you."

There’s something special about being up here, at the hill viewpoint, at night. The moonlight shimmers down as if in heightened appreciation to the distant city lights and to the water lying far below. It’s the kind of setting that strips back the monotony of life, reducing it to the bare essentials, to the things that matter, because it offers up a clarity that’s strong enough to clear any or all twisting thoughts in busy minds.

Maggie breaks before Alex does, closing the gap between them as they kiss, and they both sway as they get lost in the feeling and the setting.

Alex isn’t sure how she ever landed so lucky in finding Maggie Sawyer on her first try but Alex is so glad she did. They’re too lost in one another to notice the shooting star which crosses the vast sky over head as their lips continue to meet, kiss deepening.

Written in the stars.


	7. Partners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie gets a breakthrough on a case relating to Cadmus and Alex offers to help.

The confession unfolds like this:

It’s Saturday night and they’re both sat in the dive bar, talking loudly over music that’s been cranked up four volumes too loud on the jukebox. The night is growing old as is the crowdedness of the bar. The place is a buzz tonight - packed with crowds of humans and aliens all around - and it’s the kind of atmosphere which makes the simple task of ordering drinks a complicated and difficult one. The jukebox is blaring an eighties anthem but it’s getting increasingly harder to hear over the steadily rising volume of voices settling deep into conversation.

Maggie had managed to snag them a booth in the far corner of the bar because she happens to be on good terms with the resident bartender M’gann. Dating a compassionate detective well respected amongst the alien community does, after all, come with its perks.

The admission is divulged after a questionable amount of beers as they gaze over at one another in the confines of a far booth.

Alex confesses that she’s never experienced the thrill of a parked car hook-up, a make out session that unfolds in the backseat of a car and everything that entailed; the thrill of it all, the hungry hands gripping creased shirts and the steamed up windows as dramatically portrayed in so many movies. Maggie’s eyes shimmer with an emitted curiosity at the obvious hint, at the possibility of scoring off another one of Alex’s firsts. They’ve been doing that a lot lately - the ‘firsts’ thing - and her girlfriend’s growing bucket list always unfolds as a fun challenge.

"Never?"

"Nope." Alex answers, knocking back a mouthful of beer from the dark green bottle. She swallows, thickly, eyes flickering up from the heavily stained beer mat that’s situated squarely on the table. It’s sticky and somehow apt for the dive bar.  Alex’s gaze moves up to meet her girlfriend’s. "Never."

She’s never hooked up, had a make out session unfold in her date’s car, has never crawled across the seats and scuffed its leather in the process. Truth be told, Alex has a very important and very valid reason for missing out on that particular foray in the world of dating but now, as she finds herself in a relationship with Maggie – Alex finding herself in the same following flow of progression – her attraction to her girlfriend truly surpasses by her own comprehension. A car hook-up is yet another first Alex would like to take for a spin; take for a spin with her two hands firmly gripping the wheel, that is.

Alex gazes at her girlfriend and she’s thankful, suddenly, that she’s found herself to be tipsy this late on a Saturday night especially when Maggie tells her – with exuded confidence as she leans across the table of the booth, arms folded – that they should do it, hook-up in the backseat of her car somewhere public but off grid. The beer numbs the following flush which fills Alex’s face at the suggestion but there’s no nervous mumble of words or head shake. Instead, Alex grasps her beer, firmly, and tells Maggie that they should, that they should do it and hook-up like teens all in the setting of her car. Her veins pulsate with excitement at the proposed idea because Maggie’s eyes are gleaming back across at her own and there’s a growing smile spreading its way from her girlfriend’s lips as it engulfs her expression and clouds the remainder of her face. The unvoiced conformation of _challenge accepted_ flickers bright and present.

National City Park is always quiet at night and Sunday night is no different. In fact, it’s silent and flutters with an eerie quietness which is only frequented by the occasional hoot of an owl. It’s long after ten thirty when Maggie decides to park up in a spot which is normally utilised as a busy car lot during the day when the park is frequented and populated by ice cream trucks and donut stands. It’s the perfect place, they mutually agree, because the car is almost boxed in by a camouflage of thick and swaying trees.

Maggie’s Dodger Charge doesn’t just look good, it’s also extremely comfy. The seats are soft and Alex finds herself cascading with a nervous and overflowing excitement as Maggie switches the ignition off, the feeling only doubling when her girlfriend unfastens her seatbelt as she turns around to grin. The park is deserted and although they’re not breaking any laws - strictly speaking - it kind of feels like they are.

Hooking up in a car, it transpires, is more of a sexy fumble than smooth. Climbing into the backseat of a car does _not_ get any easier the older you get, Alex learns, when she follows Maggie through the adjoining space.   

The moment Alex’s lips meet her girlfriend’s, she forgets where she is, forgets that there’s probably a squirrel watching them from high up in an alpine tree somewhere to the right of the car and the thought travels its way into the form of a smile, one that’s pressed against her girlfriend’s lips. They kiss until they’re both breathing hard and fighting for air, pushing against one another as they kneel and shift positions across the leather of the back seats.

Alex feels her lips grow bruised - overly kissed – and she starts to believe that it’s all a dream; that she isn’t getting the chance to actively strike off another first - albeit a dorky one - from her list and is, instead, sleeping soundly back in the calming silence of her apartment. The thought is clearly untrue, however, because Maggie’s hands are scaling down to move underneath her shirt at an increasingly seductive tempo and it feels too good to be anything but real. The touch sends a shiver of adrenaline reverberating throughout her body and normally this would be the point where Alex would jolt awake from such a dream – she’s been having a lot of _those_ dreams recently – but instead of waking up from sleep, the touch is waking up her body.

Alex finds herself being eased back against one of the seats, Maggie pulling away from her lips, breathless, as she manoeuvres around the small space of the backseat. Alex’s eyes are heavy with the intoxication of excitement but she’s ever aware of her girlfriend reaching down to grip the edge of her dark henley – with calculated fingers – and she can only blink as it’s pulled over Maggie’s head and away. Maggie’s lips return to her own not a second later and her hands reach out to touch and caress the warm smoothness of her girlfriend’s skin. Alex has realised in the passing weeks that she has developed a strong craving for skin on skin contact, finding the simple act to be nothing short of an instant hit of attraction and desire, all with a measure of seduction and arousal thrown in. It’s a strong cocktail – almost as strong as a genuine knocked back shot - and one which Alex has grown a steady fondness for. Maggie’s skin feels tender at the edge of her fingertips as she grips her sides, hands trailing down to touch the edge of her belt.

Maggie pulls away from her lips with a heartfelt kiss, lips lingering, and Alex’s eyes flicker open. She’s under the haze, under the magical spell always so perfectly cast by feeling her girlfriend as close. There’s something raw and shiny with intimacy about it, how they’re just so close but still so quiet, like they’re telepathically linked by touching alone.

"This living up to expectation?" Maggie asks, her voice vibrating against Alex’s lips in the most hypnotic of ways. The motion tickles and Alex closes her eyes with a light laugh as she nods, her girlfriend now caressing her cheeks. The fallen admission is a goofy one and slightly embarrassing at the same time because she’s closing in on thirty and she’s never done this; has never made out with her date in the back of their respective car in the dark.

Maggie’s touch, however, soothes the embarrassment Alex feels bubbling to the forefront and into the light of her mind. Instead, Alex finds herself grinning.

"More than you’ll ever know."

Maggie kisses Alex again, faintly, her girlfriend’s lips fitting perfectly against her own before she draws them back as she cups Alex’s face, hands gently caressing. "Always happy to help."

Alex laughs because her girlfriend’s face – and voice – is sparked with an edge of sheer joy. There’s a steady growing set of dimples which have formed with the faintest trace of the elusive triple dimple, all present to Alex even in the shadowy light in the backseat of the car. It’s just dark enough for their hook up to feel sexy and for Alex to be made aware that the falling darkness of night sprinkles an air of danger on their liaison - quite literally - from the shimmering stars twinkling high above in the night sky.

"You get a kick out of all of this, don’t you?" Alex asks. Her words are half-serious, half-curious, because she knows the answer because she’s posed the question, once before, when they had initially begun scoring a line through her personal list of firsts. Alex still asks it though, if anything, for the reaction which she knows is destined to play out before her eyes. "Helping me strike lines through the things I should’ve done when I was, what, eighteen?"

Maggie’s following grin is all white teeth and dimples. "I’m being… helpful."

"Helpful?" Alex bites her bottom lip as her girlfriend leans back and her smile only grows wider when she realises that Maggie is beaming, her eyes a punctuated brightness in the darkness. " _Helpful_ would be helping me out of this shirt I’m wearing."

"So demanding." Maggie tells her, dimples creasing, as she closes the gap between them. She kisses Alex, slowly, inching her hands down from her girlfriend’s face to make light work of the item which her girlfriend is murmuring on about, albeit flirtatiously.

Alex pushes into Maggie – her girlfriend’s hands have been too slow on their descent moving button to button – and kisses her deeper, catching Maggie slightly by surprise. They break apart, a moment later, and Alex leans back as she tugs her shirt away. It’s a little awkward navigating the small space and with Maggie as close but the material finally slips from her arms and Alex tosses it away, hand scrunching the dark material like it’s a crumpled ball of paper. It disappears underneath one of the seats and Alex’s thoughts no longer linger on the exact location of her shirt because Maggie’s hands are everywhere, scaling down and across her body at one fast but very smooth rate, and Alex knows where her priorities lie. Her priorities lie in the softness – and hotness – of the feeling of Maggie’s lips pressing firmly against her own, of kisses which transpire to be more of tongue than lips and a steady progression of heat as they shift ever closer towards her neck.

It’s strictly make out and touch tonight, not that Alex has imagined that their first time could ever transpire in the comfy and dark back seat of Maggie’s parked Dodger Charge. They had talked about it, of course, and had confirmed that this sidestep and foray into “circa 2007” as Alex had deemed it would be strictly limited to solely make out and touch - with space remaining for a hint of more - before they had pulled up and parked in the silhouette of an ageing sycamore tree.

Alex kind of feels like she’s eighteen again – whatever _that_ was supposed to feel like – because this date night screams danger and youth and sometimes both of the sentiments are one in the same. Being granted the opportunity to actively strike a line through experiences she has only ever dreamt about before is exhilarating. Maggie is patience and always obtains a graceful poise, listening with encouragement to all of her ideals, even to the dorky ones which are admitted with wide eyes and whispered with an obvious embarrassment. Alex has missed out on a lot of the checkpoints awarded to dating but now she has been gifted with the chance – a second life of sorts – and the opportunity at being able to cross off further milestones even if she’s a little older. Age appears to be irrelevant in the given context because the feeling of actively getting to live out the things she has missed out on – the dates, the kissing under the stars – is, truly, timeless. Alex’s once stunted dating life has been reincarnated and has returned to the world in the form of beauty; Maggie.

Alex pulls Maggie in towards her when her girlfriend’s lips ease away from her neck, Maggie’s hands caressing her sides as they continue to kiss. She can’t quite believe that it’s only been one day since the words had fallen from her lips - the confession of the dating opportunities she has missed out on - because now they’re doing exactly what she had disclosed. Alex wonders, briefly, if Maggie has her own version of a dating bucket list in contrast to her own, making a mental note to ask her girlfriend when the chance permits. The list - if it existed - would be sparse in comparison to her own, Alex was sure, but there had to be something which Maggie has yet to experience.

They lose track of time as they continue to kiss, too lost in one another to notice the crossing clouds or the glow of the moon in the night sky above. The growing ambience of closeness and intimacy which has sparked into life, clouding the confines of the car and back seat, is blinding; loud and deafening. Maggie’s touch spreads with warmth across Alex’s skin with each caress, mirroring her own touch on her girlfriend. As things progress, Alex is very aware of two things happening simultaneously; Maggie’s hands are scaling around the edge of her back, to unfasten her bra, and she feels her girlfriend smiling tightly against her lips. Alex finds her own hands mirroring the same, inching around the edge of Maggie’s back, to unfasten her girlfriend's and the material is quickly tugged away with impatient hands.

Making out and touching, Alex muses, as they live out the agreed terms of the night, is a pretty sweet deal. Having it all unfold in the backseat of Maggie’s Dodger Charge only adds to the fun and now Alex gets it, understands the rush of tugging a date into the backseat, once the car has been parked up in a spot with an imaginary tag of a ‘do not disturb’ swinging from the handle of its doors. It draws back the space between them yet it increases the intimacy in the very same breath. In fact, Alex swears, the intimacy quadruples because they’re closer now than they’ve ever been and in a lot of ways. It isn’t solely the physicality of their current positions – although it’s evident - but where they both find themselves in their relationship. It feels like they’re getting closer as they near the line they’re naturally destined to cross and that in itself is a revelation but Alex isn’t nervous – okay, she’s a _little_ nervous – but with admitted apprehension is also excitement and equal enthusiasm. She’s looking forward to it, sleeping with Maggie, and her initial flicker of nervousness is only a side effect to the endless list of all the other overwhelming feelings. Times have changed, Alex thinks, and definitely for the better because she’s actively looking forward to sex. 

Everything is going well – the making out and the touching - until there’s a crackle in the air, an emission of sound, barely ten minutes later.

A very distracting sound.

A _knock_.

At first, Alex thinks she’s imagined it, invented the sound of something colliding with the surrounding car, and thinks amusedly, that it’s probably the squirrel from high in the tree. The sound appears to be irrelevant in the situation she’s found herself in as she grows lost to the feeling of her girlfriend almost grinding in her lap, lips moving across her neck.

But then Alex hears it again.

The knock.

It’s more distinctive this time around - more pronounced - and now Alex realises exactly what the sound is because someone is rattling their knuckles, thickly, against the front left hand window and there’s no squirrel to be found. Maggie is aware of the disturbance now too as she pulls her lips away and Alex tries to compose herself because her girlfriend’s features are crossing with annoyance in the dark at being disturbed. In fact, her girlfriend’s eyes are stark and wide.

The knock unfolds again and this time around the window rattles as it vibrates before the murmur of an incoherent voice uttering something which sounds a lot like ‘police, open up’. Alex recoils as a flashlight is flicked on and shone in on the back seat – at least two shades too bright – and Maggie begins to move from her lap, her annoyance now shifting into one of… amusement; amusement because they’ve been disturbed – caught – by a _cop_.

Alex starts to stammer as panic begins to shoot throughout her, all encompassing, as she moves to cover herself. What they’ve both been doing hasn’t been illegal - so to speak - but being busted by law enforcement isn’t exactly high on Alex’s to do list unless she includes _that_ particular fantasy with a certain Detective Sawyer. She blinks because the thoughts and images currently filling her mind are not helping the current situation _at all_.

"Follow my lead, okay?" Maggie whispers, smoothly, as she tugs her shirt back on. She runs a hand through her hair before she coyly – and proudly - tells Alex that she’s done this before. Her girlfriend isn’t emitting any signs of embarrassment unless she’s maintaining a steady poker face.

Alex inwardly shakes her head at the predictability of the situation and narrows her eyes in the darkness, slightly lost for words as she reaches across to find her misplaced shirt on the floor. "Why am I not surprised?"

They tug on their respective – and creased – clothing before Maggie presses the button of the window and the glass begins to descend. The cop is glancing away, obviously embarrassed at realising what he’s stumbled upon, gazing at the light of the flashlight which is now pointed at his feet. He tells them that the park is closed and that they’re not allowed to park here and Maggie can’t believe her luck because she recognises the voice.

" _Mason?"_

Alex blinks, crossing with confusion, as her eyes flit up from their position on the floor. Her embarrassment has been momentarily paused and she finds the feeling of shame being replaced by curiosity and she isn’t alone. The cop turns his head, finally braving his first look into the back seat, and his grip on the flashlight weakens. He looks young in the darkness, his expression crossing with shock and equal surprise.

" _Sawyer?"_

They _know_ each other. Of course they do.

Maggie explains to Alex, coolly, as she glances around, that " _this_ guy used to be a recruit" and one who she helped by ‘practically holding his hand’. He shares an update, tells Maggie that he’s now graduated from the academy and has recently been given the weekend gig monitoring National City Park. Maggie phrases the story as if they’re old friends, as if the cop hasn’t just caught them mid-park up with remnants of half-coloured hickeys and bruised lips on display even in the shadows of night.

Eventually, when her embarrassment subsides and Alex finally feels like she can look her girlfriend’s old recruit fully in the eye, she finds herself sharing a sheepish grin. They’ve been dating for just over three months now and Maggie Sawyer still continues to surprise her. She hopes she always will.

 

* * *

 

It’s eight pm on Monday night when Maggie decides she’s had enough.

Had enough of case work, that is.

The coffee she had poured herself – the only consolation prize afforded to working this late so early on in the week – has now grown cold and icy in the warm grasp of her hands. This isn’t exactly how she had envisioned spending her Monday night; alone at her desk in the surrounds of a near empty bullpen, fingers nursing a heavily stained mug that’s half-full with black coffee.

Maggie’s eyes ache with a dedicated strain, the kind that’s gifted when you’ve been staring at the same subject for too long, which – in this case – is the investigation pin board that’s situated to the right of her desk. The board is illuminated by a faint and flickering florescent light hanging high above, one which Maggie swears holds the same distorted effects reminiscent of a migraine. It buzzes insistently in the stillness of the room, grating on her already growing headache, but Maggie tries her best to push it towards the far flung corners of her mind. If she didn’t focus on the distraction, it wouldn’t be able to possess the power to crawl underneath her skin in irritation.

The investigation board placed before her eyes is methodical. Pieced together over time - and with the help of an endless list of colleagues - the collaboration has unfolded to be its own form of artwork. Maggie’s eyes have been scanning across the board – left to right, left to right – for the past few hours and now her pupils are bloodshot, heavy with an ache of eye strain because no matter how many times she reads the words and glances at the photos, she always emerges empty handed, missing the link she’s so desperate to find.

Maggie’s gaze falls on the map of National City pinned neatly in the centre of the board, her eyes tracing over the lines of drawn circles, of pencilled in details, and of multi-coloured push pins connected by thin pieces of red string interlinking the spaces between. Judging by the map alone, Cadmus looks to be growing at a steady rate, expanding their hooks and tentacles into the Southern industrial districts of the city in the form of warehouses and hideaways running adjacent to the docks. To the left of the map is known associates of the anti-alien organisation, a rogue’s gallery of sorts, in the form of black and white surveillance shots taken at distance. The most prominent photograph, however, and the one in which Maggie’s gaze gravitates towards with the greatest disdain, is the shot of Lillian Luthor. The figurehead has a growing target and even bigger bounty on her head - the N.C.P.D’s very own bullseye - but the Cadmus alumni is very slippery indeed. Luthor is well read and plans ahead, always obtaining the steady knowledge of the best moment in which to play her hand (the one that’s normally dealt with the highest ranking Kings and Queens) and Maggie is always left holding the Jack instead of the Ace of Spades. The cards are rigged, though, and almost always in the favour of Cadmus. They never played by the rules.

The terrorist organisation appeared to be branching out, now, priming human gangs with high grade weaponry – for the right price, of course - which could only be categorised in the bright red letters of bad news because Cadmus have been dealing arms at an incredibly dangerous rate to equally dangerous vigilante groups. The foray into arms dealing and trading seemed a little docile at first - even sloppy - but the odd advancement has hit the city in a range of ways. In the last two months alone, National City has faced an ever increasing spate of bank jobs. The creativity of criminals appears to be stunted as they opt to dust down the same old tropes. Targeting the locations with ray guns and destabilizers, however, gifted the gangs with a distinct edge. The N.C.P.D had nabbed the perpetrators of two out of four of the robberies – with the addition of _Supergirl_ in tow – but this division of Cadmus appeared to share the same traits of a flatworm and had once again regrown the side which had been cut off, a fatality lost in battle.

The case has unfolded to be the very definition of a slow burn – a side project so to speak - and one that’s appeared almost static and frigid as the N.C.P.D played their best hand at the long game. It’s been ongoing for the past few months, stretching as far back into the beginning of last year and there have been some breakthroughs. The net has been closing in, steadily, on the arms dealing and the street gangs operating out of various territories throughout the city but the tempo hasn’t been fast enough. Maggie is endlessly proud of everything that the Science Police have achieved up until this moment but she realises - with a sinking feeling - that they could do better. The space for improvement is ever growing even as they advance towards the operation’s conclusion.

Below the map and rogue’s gallery on the pin board are a handful of post-it notes – mostly obtained in Maggie’s handwriting – with a number of crime scene photos and reports situated in between. Maggie isn’t sure why her gaze falls across the now too familiar subjects but it rests on automation and even though she’s exhausted, a little hungry and ready for sleep, her tiredness sparks with a steady determination. The board is a collage - a montage - of the ongoing operation into stopping Cadmus and each week brings something new. Small wins are welcomed and sometimes even bigger defeats. It appeared that the Science Police were at times two steps behind the confident strides of the anti-alien organisation. The team Maggie has forged together is effective and the small defeats, if anything, are always a catalyst and an ever present push in propelling them closer towards finally extinguishing the burning flame of Cadmus.

The biggest breakthrough in the arms case - stroke side project - arrives on Maggie’s desk the following morning.

The crisp brown paper file lands centrally on her desk as it’s deposited in passing by a member of her team. She doesn’t always get updates this early into her shift – literally an hour in - so it had to have just come in. Maggie’s fingers skim over the smoothness of the file, immediately realizing that the document is one of a contact request and not of an actual case report. She flicks it open with a steady curiosity, meeting the black and white text with intrigue. The contact she had previously established within the last year, a whistle-blower on Cadmus, has made contact after a brief hiatus of silence and has requested to meet. The contact is a defector of the organisation and someone who still remains cautious – ten months down the line – about being a protected witness of the N.C.P.D. The message which has been scribed tells Maggie that the defector claims to hold new information and says that he wants to talk.

The contact had at one time been a small fish in a very large tank, circling the waters of Cadmus just long enough to convince his colleagues that they were friends. He had his reasons, he would tell Maggie later, for turning his back on the organisation, reasons he never wants to dwell upon. It’s been months since they last spoke, last rendezvoused in a quiet bar in the heart of National City, so the message that her tip now wants to meet arrives as a surprise. They used to meet up monthly, always in a different location, and over time the whistle blower had adopted the code name of “Shadow” because that’s just what happens to corrupt the skin underneath his eyes. He looks like he never catches sleep.

Attached to the document that Maggie’s eyes are scanning across is a time and place, a handwritten note with a scribbled down address. They were to meet today at a bar in the mid-afternoon. Maggie's day just got interesting.

The bar - it transpires - is more strip club than drinks den as Maggie navigates through the dark space, police badge conveniently hidden from view.

She observes her contact as he sits at the bar, facing away from where she stands, as his eyes stare into the near emptiness of his glass. Maggie strides across the floor, ignoring the gathering crowds beginning to pool around the central stage in the middle of the bar, before she slides down onto the soft plushness of a leather stool next to her confidante.

"You wanted to meet." is the greeting Maggie offers, her gaze shifting around the room. They’re alone, she’s certain, and the music pounding out from a sound system overhead is an annoyance but provides an effective cover. The eyes of the other attendees happen to be on the scantily clad dancers striding around the stage. "You said you had something for me."

Her contact knocks back the last droplets of his drink in one swift mouthful before he pushes the glass away. He tells Maggie about the crooks he calls friends and how he’s the biggest crook of them all for selling secrets to the enemy. His rambling rhetoric is one which has been heard before – many times over – and lasts for the following ten minutes before Maggie gets her first hint of something meaningful. Her confidante makes sure to solidify a succinct bargaining chip before he shares, however, and rambles on about ‘the noose’ that he claims is slung tightly around his neck. He wants immunity and tells Maggie that he wants out and this time the very definition of the word.

"I can make that happen." Maggie tells him, coolly, before she adds that the scenario can only be possible if he provides them with something of substance, another string to their bow in their fight against Cadmus.

Initially, he hesitates. His hesitation, however, is misplaced because as much as he remains cautious about law enforcement, the detective who sits by his side has yet to let him down. He’d even go as far as to say he trusts her.

"They’ve got something coming this Friday."

Maggie inhales a breath. "I’m listening."

"Something big." He downs another mouthful of the fresh spirit he ordered somewhere between his ramblings and intel. "A shipment."

"Arms?"

He nods. "They’re meeting tomorrow night at a place in the east side. Luthor is pulling the strings. She’s supposed to be putting in an appearance."

Maggie sits up as she tells him to forward on the details to the number he knows and he nods, telling her he will. She thanks him for his cooperation as she gets up to leave.

His parting words to Maggie are in the form of a reminder that when she gets her bust, he gets his life back.

 

* * *

 

The first thing which hits Alex as she strolls through her girlfriend’s apartment door is the enticing and wafting smell of a sizzling hot pan of stir fry.

The smell is a rich symphony of green and red peppers, of onion and soy sauce, and is an overpowering landscape which is merely hinting at the taste. It smells great but Alex knows from experience that it will taste even better. She grins as she closes the apartment door behind, the noise disturbing her girlfriend mid-stir in the kitchen. The pan sizzles and crackles as Maggie beams over at her girlfriend, warm in greeting.

"You’re here." Maggie says, settling the pan back against the hot flame on the stove before she wipes her hands on a towel, her smile never fading. She greets her girlfriend with a kiss not a second later and Alex has to salvage a moment to open her eyes after it ends because the action has grown to be one which is regimented and rife with intimacy. She’s in her girlfriend’s apartment after leaving work and Maggie is making them dinner and everything feels good and right, like it’s where it’s destined to be, falling into place like a pre-destined jigsaw piece. Alex swears that she could live in this moment alone; in Maggie’s apartment with the low light and the soothing atmosphere forever if she could.

The stir fry lives up to and surpasses all expectations. Alex can’t help but compliment every fork and mouthful she takes before Maggie smiles with dimples on display as she excitedly tells her girlfriend that tiramisu is tonight’s choice of dessert and that she’s going to love it. Tiramisu, Alex has learned in the passing weeks, is something her girlfriend has a steady fondness for. The love – and it is love - Maggie shares for the dessert is beyond cute and Alex will proudly admit that she now stocks the sweet in her refrigerator on a regular basis for the nights when her girlfriend comes over. Post-tiramisu make outs are now very much a thing.

Alex asks Maggie about her day and initially the question is received by a slight wince and an amused "ask me another question" before her girlfriend eventually opens up.

"Bad day?" Alex offers as the first spoon of the coffee flavoured dessert is nearing her mouth. She crosses with intrigue and with worry because the expression her girlfriend wears is crestfallen, damp and almost grey.

"Just long." Maggie answers with a slight sigh before she swallows another mouthful. "I was- I spent the afternoon with a tip off. You remember the arms case?" Alex nods. She knew all about the ongoing op, it being Cadmus related and lately with thoughts of her dad springing once again into the centre of her mind, Alex has been spending a lot of her time combing through case files with a fine attention to detail.

Maggie hesitates. She knows the subject of Cadmus remains a sore spot for Alex and for good reason, realising immediately that her girlfriend already has the flames of determination burning bright and fiery red in her eyes.

"We just got a lead." Maggie offers, pushing her bowl aside, the spoon clanging as it meets porcelain, as she gazes across at her girlfriend. "They’ve got a big shipment coming Friday."

"I wanna help’ Alex tells her, immediately and with an air of finality, and Maggie knows she won’t be able to sway her girlfriend from helping and aiding in the op, not that she would try. Maggie gets it – completely - why Alex has the faint whiff of revenge sparking vibrantly through her adrenaline glands, shimmering in her eyes. Cadmus just happens to be the biggest target on her girlfriend’s agenda – it’s personal - and Maggie will always happily accept the extended hand of any offered help especially if it meant that Alex would in turn receive some kind of personal satisfaction and gratification from stamping out another sector of the terrorist organisation which she had once vowed to take down to Lillian Luthor herself.

"I knew you would but don’t get too excited." Maggie tells her, after she happily accepts the offer of her girlfriend’s help with a dimpled grin. That itself had sealed the deal, instantly making it official. "It’s mainly stakeouts and late night coffee calls."

"I could never say no to late night coffee."

"You will once you taste it."

 

* * *

 

 

Late night coffee isn’t as bad as foretold, Alex thinks, as they sit; disguised in an unmarked police car, close enough to the address of an apartment Maggie had been primed with the following night.

The car is well hidden, in the darkening shadow situated in a diagonal position from the sandstone building they’re observing, and far enough away to sit at a protected distance. The coffee, however, is a little too warm for Alex’s taste as it washes into her mouth. Maggie had pulled into a late night vendor before they had driven and parked in position, telling Alex that the job, at least, had some perks but that late night coffee definitely wasn’t one of them.

They’ve been sitting in the unmarked car for just over an hour now, watching for any movement in the sandstone building. Maggie had assured Alex that tonight would most likely be evidence gathering, snapping a few photos of Luthor and her associates entering and leaving the building. The camera she had brought with them feels weighty and chunky as it rests on her thigh, the extended camera lens looking more paparazzi than police. The apartment they’re watching with steady eyes is on the third floor, decorated with a rusting fire escape on the outside. It looks too normal so they know they’ve been given an effective tip off.

"Lights are on." Maggie comments, raising the camera towards her eyes as she prepares to frame and snap a capture. "Someone’s home."

"No sign of Luthor." Alex says, her grip steady on a spy glass as she peers through it. She moves her line of sight over towards the fire escape and below to the tall and intimidating entry door of the building.

The camera clicks as the shutter sounds, Maggie taking her first snapshots. "Not yet."

"How reliable is your source?" Alex asks. She isn’t worried, neither is she doubting, and is instead filling with curiosity. She’s read the file, has been briefed on an in depth scale by the lead detective on the case who just so happens to be her girlfriend, but it’s always incredibly more interesting to hear Maggie share her own reflections on a case.

"He’s a defector." Maggie offers with a slight shrug as she moves the camera away from her eyes. "He has… questionable loyalties."

"You trust him?"

"He hasn’t let me down." Maggie pauses, lowering the camera to her knee. "Not yet."

The biggest buzz of excitement arrives twenty minutes later.

Lillian Luthor is dressed head to toe in black, wearing an ever cold and icy expression, as two hired henchmen flank her. It’s now after midnight and even though the streets are covered with the darkness of early morning, the sheer disdain worn on the woman’s face seemingly glows in the dark. She’s strides from a car with darkened windows, glancing around the street with eyes which miss the surveillance vehicle parked out of sight in a position across the street.

Maggie gets her photos of entry and they wait it out until she leaves. It’s a slow process, a slow night, occasionally punctuated by words of flirtation and sips of now too cold coffee. Luthor eventually emerges and leaves in the same car she had arrived in. Maggie’s camera clicks and clicks, Alex keeping a steady eye as the watched car departs and leaves. It’s been a long night.

 

* * *

 

"Someone’s tired."

It’s state the obvious day, it seems, as Alex stifles another yawn.

They’re sitting in the shadow of the sun, on a bench in the park around the corner from the precinct. Meeting up for lunch is a nice way to break the grey cloud of a working day and after the events of last night, it feels apt. They’re not solely meeting up just for lunch, however, but also to share details on advances in the case. Friday – bust day – is less than twenty four hours away, now, and the logistics of the operation have yet to be cemented.

"Had a late night." Alex tells Maggie, grinning. "I was… aiding a detective with a case."

"Do I _know_ this detective?" Maggie jests, tilting her head as she leans back against the park bench. "Should I be jealous?"

"Of drinking coffee, late at night, as we _surveyed?"_  Alex pauses, thinking with exaggeration. "I think you should be jealous."

Maggie laughs, lightly. Sometimes she forgets just how good her girlfriend is with words. "Well, as long as you just surveyed and nothing else."

" _Oh_ , there was definitely more."

Maggie wets her bottom lip, urging an obvious adoration with her eyes. Words are her girlfriend’s own personal weapon in priming flirtation and disarming any protests of the opposite, not that Maggie would ever protest for less flirtation. Actually, she’s actively campaigning for more. The flowing flirtation is disturbed – as well as Maggie’s thoughts – as her phone starts to vibrate, ringing loudly from its position tucked neatly in the front pocket of her jeans.

"Hold that thought." Maggie says, slipping her phone out of her pocket. She glances at the caller I.D on instinct but she already knows that it’s work. "Sawyer."

Alex listens as Maggie murmurs a lot of affirmatives and a lot of no’s, ones which are bridged with gentle nods and head shakes.

"I’ll be there right away."

The call ends and Maggie’s expression crosses with mild irritation as she slips her phone back into her pocket, holding it in the palm of her hand for three seconds too long before she does. Something is wrong.

"Everything okay?"

"Change of plan." Maggie tells her, shifting against the bench. ‘You know the shipment that was supposed to be landing tomorrow night?’ Alex nods. "Shift changed. It’ll be at the docks by nine tonight _._ We’ve gotta move."

They really _have_ got to move so they plan.

Alex sits in on the afternoon brief Maggie leads in the bullpen and she only has to flash her forged F.B.I badge once – to Maggie’s partner McConnell – as she sits, listening, in the far corner of the room.

The plan goes like this; the N.C.P.D is to plant themselves discreetly at the docks pre-arrival of the shipment, between containers and their rusting metal, and Maggie is to lead the operation. The F.B.I has been brought in as official consultants, she tells her colleagues, making reference to her girlfriend who sits in the corner, instructing them that Alex is to be welcomed with open arms.

They grab dinner from a diner across the street before they suit up for the operation, fastening on windbreakers over kevlar vests. It’s just past seven when they emerge at the docks. The police presence is undetectable – most officers are in plain clothes except for Maggie – as they split up, their human chain dispersing as they move into and through the jungle of metal containers adjacent to the crashing waters of the docks. Alex sits with Maggie in an unmarked car, watching from a distance and at height, on a hill overlooking the ground below, as they await the arrival of the freighter.

"You ever been in a cop car, before?" Maggie asks, between a pause of silence. The shipment remains, by estimation, roughly half an hour away and they’re really only killing time. "I don’t think I’ve ever asked."

"I’ve ridden shotgun with you." Alex replies, coolly. The last time she had shared a ride with Maggie is ever sharp and fresh in her mind because the occasion had fallen in what Alex likes to term as “post-coming out”. The air between them that night had felt stuffy, spoken words seemingly forced between moments of uncomfortable silence, very much in contrast to how they find themselves now.

" _Except_ with me." Maggie grins, resting her hands on the steering wheel.

Alex glances away as she finds the auto-cue of her words growing dry as they stick uncomfortably on the edge of her tongue. Maggie still remains in the dark about her past, about the days when she hadn’t exactly been on the light side of life’s figurative pen diagram. Alex wants to tell Maggie because there’s a curious itch that scratches its way over her skin in suspense at how her very detective girlfriend will react to the discovery that she had - at one time - been a bad girl; a bad girl with long hair and a knack for knocking back liquor straight from the neck of the bottle in which it had been served in. Alex laughs to herself. The downed liquor may have been delivered straight but she sure as hell hadn’t been. Alex cringes, inwardly, at the reflection of her past self, of the long hair which looked more wig than natural in the dusty photos albums she keeps hidden from view in a box tucked neatly underneath her bed. It remains a fun thought, though, as she realises that Maggie would’ve been in the early beginnings of her police career around those days. Maybe she even booked her once, Alex contemplates, as her eyes rest on the subject of her thoughts but she swears she would remember if it had of happened. Like, Maggie would be emblazoned on her memory, inked like a tattoo.

Alex is tugged to the surface of her thoughts when Maggie moves to use the spy glass. Her girlfriend focuses in on the distant darkness of the murky waters, telling Alex when she catches her first glance of the cruising freighter. It crosses across the water slowly as Maggie passes the spy glass to her girlfriend. The ship is larger than she had been anticipating.

"Should be here in the next five minutes or so." Maggie watches as Alex follows the ship as it crosses through the waters. "You ready?"

They slip out from the car, walking at speed as they descend the natural incline of the hill running adjacent to the very edge of the docks. The position that they had parked offered up a crystal clear view and perspective across the industrial landscape. They could see over and between tall, yellow and rusting cranes, over large pieces of scrap metal dotted between and the containers sporadically placed along the running edge.

Alex trails closely behind Maggie as they take cover between two red containers, the open dock just before their eyes. The freighter is nearing now, cranking on its breaks and flicking on its lights as it slows in speed. The N.C.P.D are well hidden now, situated in a continuous circle on both sides of the water, between containers, sheets of scrap metal and abandoned boats. They’ve planned this out, one hundred times over, but preparation never comes close to the real thing, to the pounding shots of adrenaline, of the anticipation of a bust.

The freighter slides into its resting position almost valiantly against the falling darkness of night and Maggie holds her glock before herself, pointing down, Alex mirroring her position on her left hand side. They watch as the crew disembark, shouting hollow words which dissipate as they catch in the passing wind. There’s a long, drawn out couple of minutes as their eyes gaze across at the ship, observing a group of men as they appear at the edge to aid with an adjoining slope. The sound of metal colliding with the muddy concrete edge ripples through the air as the slope slams down to connect the ship to land. Maggie raises her arm up, slowly, holding her glock in her right hand as she gives the silent signal of _one_ , _two_ , _three_.

It’s like clockwork, literally. N.C.P.D bodies appear from the right, going clockwise, lead equally by Maggie who is followed closely by Alex. The crew, for the most part, don’t even put up a fight, completely sucker punched by the element of surprise. Some struggle as they attempt miscalculated getaways before they eventually end up getting read their rights. With glocks extended, the sound of heavy boots scuffing across metal echoes loudly as Maggie leads the way over the slope and onto the ship. There’s more crew on board, of course, but not as many as she thought there would be. There is, however, an endless maze of containers and they need to be checked immediately. Maggie instructs her team to get the containers open by an urgent rattle against the sides of the corrugated metal before one of her officers pulls a crowbar out of seemingly thin air and sets about getting the first container open.

"That’s a lot of containers." Alex comments, holstering her gun as the threat has been judged at being contained. They had swooped across the landscape of the initial main drag in less than a minute.

Maggie glances around, eyes trailing over the tall and winding stack of multi-coloured containers. "Let’s hope there’s a prize."

The metal creaks stiffly as it’s wedged wide, flashlights flickering on in sync. There’s a steady group of eyes following the shining lights as they move with speed across the uncovered contents. This container is full of cases, cases which are high-grade and sleek in design. Maggie holsters her gun as she steps inside. From the offset, so far, it’s looking good.

Alex can sense the shiver of anticipation crisscrossing throughout the air as she breathes against the coldness of the night. She watches, closely, as Maggie dusts down one of the cases, as if measuring it up for size, before her hands move to unlatch the lock. The case clicks as it unlocks and Maggie inhales a suspenseful breath. Multiple months of planning have been hinging on this moment and there’s so many what-ifs currently whirring around her mind, turning like cogs. What if they’ve made a mistake? What if they’ve miscalculated? What if Cadmus has won another round of its not so cold war?

To Maggie’s relief, they’ve struck gold. The first case she’s opened cushions a large gun and one that looks like it’d be too heavy to be carried by hand.

"Just like Christmas." Maggie announces as she turns, taking a step back and Alex catches the faint traces of a smile. Her girlfriend instructs her team to open up the other containers before they move to check the spaces below deck.

"You think there’s anyone down there?" Alex asks, her voice lowering as she unholsters her glock, following Maggie closely as they descend to the lower level, to a hold, through a doorway.

"Only one way to find out." Maggie says, quietly, now holding her weapon. ‘We’ve got them surrounded but they might try something’ she adds, glancing over her shoulder to Alex. "You ready?"

Alex grins. The excitement and rush is already present. "After you."

Taking names in the growing darkness on a Thursday night really is as fun as it sounds. In support to her girlfriend, Alex holds nothing but appreciation and proudness as they corner two Cadmus alumni hiding in the darkness of the hold. Maggie reads them their rights and Alex can do nothing but smirk at the detainees as her girlfriend quips something sarcastic and mildly insulting as they stand, stooped, in handcuffs.

When they emerge back into the light of the night sky, Maggie deposits the perps in front of a gathering crowd of officers and tells them to keep them good company. The freighter is swarmed now, creaking with heavy boots as it rocks gently against the water. Alex finds herself gravitating towards the far edge, eyes lost towards the moonlight shimmering in the darkness of the water below. Maggie remains conversing with officers, overseeing the removal and bagging of the various recovered items, to Alex’s far left. She stares at the water for too long, shivering as a cold wind sweeps past her, blowing a strand of hair into her eyes. The voices of the various officers carry in the wind and Alex closes her eyes but only for a moment, though, because she has the strangest feeling she’s being watched. The thought crosses across her skin in a cold shiver, the same icy strand as the passing wind which had met her face, until her eyes open.

Alex looks up from the cascading waves of the water as her gaze flits up to the adjacent length of concrete situated directly in front. The back of the shuttered warehouse is well lit with square lights and, if anything, make the presence of any observers distinct and obvious. She sees the billowing raincoat before she recognises the face, because; standing across on the opposite side of the docks, is Lillian Luthor.

She's resting against the edge of a dark car, holding Alex’s steady stare with an admittance of rage. It’s kind of a cliché and not at all surprising that the figurehead would be hanging back in the shadows as she observed her failed venture. What is present, however, even at this distance – between the water and the freighter – is the thunderous look set in a near permanent place on Luthor’s face. Alex offers her condolences in the form of a sarcastic wave and the silent promise that revenge is on its way. Luthor seems to have had enough of the scene taking place and sharply turns away as she’s ushered into the car. Alex knows that tonight has only made a small dent in the long game they find themselves playing against Cadmus but it’s a win no less.

"She certainly knows how to make an entrance." Maggie chimes in, appearing at her side. "But it’s even better when she leaves."

Alex inhales, forming a smile as she turns around to gaze at her girlfriend. "Should we go after her?"

"The time we cross the water, she’ll be gone." Maggie murmurs, breathing out an annoyed sigh at the realisation. "She’ll have her day."

Alex nods. The chances of stopping Lillian Luthor tonight have sadly expired or more accurately, skidded away. The dark car disappears from sight, as does some of Alex’s optimism. She forces a smile, one which gets half lost on execution, as she glances back towards the rippling water.

"Hey… you okay?" Maggie asks, taking a step closer as she reaches out to touch Alex’s arm, moving into her side.

"Just a little tired." Alex answers as she turns around, Maggie’s arm snaking around her waist. The motion is reassuring and Alex finds herself smiling deeper, for real this time. "But I’ll live."

"C’mon, I’ll make it up to you." Maggie squeezes her waist, hitching an eyebrow. "Pancakes at my place. You in?"

"I could never say no to pancakes."

The day may have kick started with a shadowy surveillance stakeout in the early hours of the morning but it ends with blueberry pancakes shared in the warm relaxing haze of Maggie’s apartment.

 

* * *

 

The unofficial after party arrives the following night and takes place in the dive bar.

Some of Maggie’s colleagues are there to show face as are Kara, James and Winn. It’s a hero’s welcome of sorts. It’s not something Maggie particularly enjoys - the post-op celebrations – and is instead an occasion she always tries her best to avoid. She always declares – repeatedly towards the close proximity of monotony - that it’s her job to do what she does. Alex’s words, this time, and her colleagues, had eventually worn away any initial resistance she had insisted upon. In fact, maybe tonight was just what Maggie needed, to let loose and have a few drinks.

Alex tells Maggie that she deserves it, deserves the night, and her girlfriend’s words leave Maggie a little lost in finding her own.

"Well, I couldn’t have done it without you so _technically_ you’re thanking yourself." Maggie says before she sips a mouthful of beer.

Sometimes, Maggie is bad, almost allergic, to taking compliments. Not always, though. It’s a trait which Alex knows from experience that she herself shares although she’s doing her best to work through it.

"I didn’t do the research or the case files." Alex pauses, gripping her beer bottle as she studies her girlfriend. Maggie looks a little dazed, a little drunk and the observation only enhances the attraction she feels. "Which, by the way, were pieced together over a year. I merely offered to… walk by your side, ride the waves."

"You’re exaggerating." Maggie adds before she sips a mouthful of beer.

"I’m not." Alex nudges her shoulder with her side. "Not at all."

"Those guys had no idea what hit them."

"Back at the hanger?"

"Thanks for having my six."

Alex smiles. "Any time."

"And you know, I’ve been thinking." Maggie begins, fidgeting with her beer bottle in her hands. "We make a good team, you and me. Maybe we should partner more often."

"I mean, I guess I could be persuaded..."

Maggie can’t hold back the smile which springs onto her face. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Alex says, smiling as she raises her beer up to toast. She nudges Maggie’s side playfully with her shoulder. "I must warn you, though, I’m a hard sell."

Maggie laughs, lightly, as she raises her bottle towards Alex’s own. " _You_ , a hard sell? Never."

In the low light of the bar, standing before a set of flickering neon signs, the night feels bright with contentment and warmth. Their beer bottles clink together and it’s only now – in this moment – when Alex realises how illuminated her girlfriend’s eyes are in the nightly ambience. They grin as they take their first respective mouthfuls of post-toast beer, the toast sprinkling the liquid with an even finer taste.

It’s been a long week, one which had been kick started with striking off another first so tonight feels like an apt and well-earned after party. The bar buzzes with life as they fall into easy conversation; words and sentences which are peppered with equal flirtation and teasing. They do, after all, make a great team.


	8. Perfect Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perfect  
>  _Adjective_  
>  1\. Having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.
> 
> Alex and Maggie find their place and everything is perfect.

Alex’s working day begins with morning coffee sipped under a scenic backdrop of a bright sky and ends with the subject of jewel thieves. Jewel thieves who look to be exploiting the remainder of Cadmus’ exchanged weapons; chunky guns of close range rockets - if the projectile which collides with a flying Supergirl in close pursuit is anything to go by. She’s trailing after them, following the speeding van in the growing shadows of night, arms extended in flight, heat vision utilised at a calculated moment which is timed to perfection. The black van flips on its side, sparking and toppling, screeching to an eventual stop as it grates against the concrete.

It would have been too predictable and too easy for all of the thieves to be located in the van when Supergirl lands. As her boots step closer, her eyes take in the reality that there’s only one crook present in the van and it’s the driver. There had been more – multiple - all wearing fear inducing hockey masks that struck a more futuristic chord than horror. It’s a slightly irritating development because it’s Monday night and she’s found herself doing this; chasing down petty criminals armed with Cadmus tech following a spate of thefts at jewellery arcades within the city centre.

The missing thieves - it unfolds - are taken care of by the Guardian and Supergirl flies back to the DEO wearing an annoyed and irritated expression, itching to lament the subject of rogue vigilantism and its dangers to Alex. It’s not exactly how she pictured her Monday night ending. Alex is finishing up in the main operations room a little later than usual tonight.

The bright lights of the city had shimmered in the early evening as Alex drifted past the clear and wide windows overlooking the city streets far below, making Alex astutely aware of the gaining darkness. With the days now inching closer towards February, the nights are finally beginning to show their first hints at lighter skies. National City always suffered during the cooler months and the current season has been drawn out and long. The routine offers up comparisons to being nocturnal; getting up for work when the sun is low and the sky is dark before churning through the working day only to return back home to apartments and lofts in the same shade of initial darkness.

As Alex begins to ascend the main stairs adjoining the first and second floors to the operations room, she’s holding a tray of test tubes steadily in her hands. It’s been a slow day and one that’s been spent moving between the operations room and the upstairs lab, testing samples of alien DNA and categorising the results. Imaginary tumbleweeds rolling past in the cool breeze offered up by the ventilation system had appeared in Alex’s mind on more than one occasion but the day spent in the confines of the building - overall - emerged as a calming beginning to the start of another week.

Kara lands with a deep swoosh, doors parting as she strides into the building. Alex had timed her movement somewhat perfectly, ascending towards the top of the stairs from the main operations room just in time to ask "jewel thieves?"

"Nabbed." Kara strolls closer towards her sister’s side, boots landing on the first steps of the staircase. "I nabbed them. But, of course, Guardian had to show up and pick up some of the stragglers. That guy is starting to get on my nerves."

"But he did help." Alex offers. It’s a true statement; the vigilante – James – did help but the noted point, nonetheless, is a jabbed finger to her sister’s side. "That’s something."

They take a sharp left, moving into the lab which had been adopted as Alex’s hub of activity for most of the day. The room is tidier now and illuminated by low light. "Yeah, _barely."_ Kara says, "I was the one who had to dodge the surface-to-air missiles. All he did was slap cuffs on wrists."

Alex deposits the tray of test tubes she’s been holding on a vacant counter in the lab space before she rounds on her sister. "Okay, what’s bothering you? And it’s not Guardian."

Alex listens intently as Kara continues her rhetoric about the Guardian, about the jewel thieves and one of the bank robberies she had put a stop to last week; when Supergirl had shared yet another brush with the N.C.P.D and a certain Detective Sawyer. Kara’s words are expressed with annoyance, skimming dangerously close towards the waters of exasperation. There’s a jokingly cast comment about crinkles and Botox wedged in between Kara’s pained words and Alex senses immediately that her sister is feeling adrift as she finds herself coasting through the continuous – and sometimes confusing – life of a hero. They talk as they move, Alex transporting the tray to yet another counter, finding her hands tugging at a test tube as Kara continues.

"So lately, I feel like I’m protecting jewels and money more than I’m protecting people."

"You were a hero tonight." Alex assures, firmly. "So go home, celebrate."

"Do you wanna come over?" Kara asks. "We could catch up on _The Night Of."_

Alex tells Kara that she has plans and Alex realises – with guilty eyes – that she's betraying sister night and the binge marathon of their current favourite and shared show. Her relationship with Maggie has shifted to take centre stage and sister night feels like it doesn’t take place as often as it should. The guilt bubbles to the surface in an almost regimented way so Alex immediately offers to cancel her plans but Kara tells her no before she urges her sister, amusedly, to go be with her girlfriend.

 _Girlfriend_. It remains a daunting word but one which sounds perfectly formed as it lands, resting, on the edge of Alex’s tongue, showering her with a steady shot of giddiness. Maggie Sawyer is her girlfriend. They’re dating. The statement - the facts - arrive in bold impact; cascading and joyous, rendering  throughout Alex in an all-encompassing heart-and-soul sort of way, with the feeling emerging and forming as a white tooth grin and a nervous face scrunch.

"I can’t have a- I have a girlfriend."

Kara laughs lightly as she tells Alex to _go._

Alex gets changed in the locker room, the metal door of her locker creaking as the engraving of _A.Danvers_ swings wide. After spending the day engaging in almost non-stop communication with Maggie – in the form of endlessly pinging text clouds – she can’t wait for her gaze to fall on her girlfriend’s, for her touch to unfold both vibrant and real. The texts were enjoyable but the illuminated screen of her cell phone could never come close to actually replicating the colour and the spreading warmth or the dimples which form in near permanent residency whenever Maggie is by her side. The shared texts had been nothing short of flirtatious and equally teasing as they found themselves reflecting on their failed attempt at parking up a weekend ago. Maggie had vowed that she wouldn’t fail on a second try and Alex, ever teasing, said she would keep her to that - to her words - because it had to happen. It was a noted ‘first’ after all. They might need to press pause on National City Park, however, for the time being because as fun as getting disturbed was, Alex finds herself still swaying with embarrassment. She can’t slow or stop the faint hint of crimson from clouding her face whenever she remembers knocks on windows and flickers of a flashlight and she has a sneaking suspicion that her girlfriend has caught on to the development. Maggie knows – of course Maggie knows - because ever since the night had transpired her girlfriend has been sneaking the subject into multiple conversations, all in a way which is undeniably suspicious. 

Alex closes her locker with a growing grin, thinking of Maggie’s smile and the way in which it seemingly seeps into the entirety of her girlfriend’s existence. The addition of dimples only added to it - of course - to the bigger picture of the smile and the shiny white glossiness reflecting from Maggie’s eyes.  In just over fifteen minutes or so, Alex will be bearing witness to the very scenario she’s daydreaming about and the brief thought is enough to place a finer spring to her step as she exits the locker room.

 

* * *

 

It’s just after six thirty when Maggie arrives at Alex’s apartment. She’s wearing a grin, emphasised with dimples, over her much loved leather jacket; shiny leather that sways as she moves into the apartment, gently closing the door behind her with a soft click. The white shirt she’s wearing underneath and over tight dark denims is an effective catalyst in pulling Alex towards her in greeting, in a way which is reminiscent of the pulling tug of a magnet. The magnetic force is strong – shimmering flawlessly - as lips meet warm in greeting but it’s barely a minute for the initial and welcoming chaste kisses to lurch and falter as the connection shifts gear, steadfast, merging into open mouth kisses as Alex presses Maggie up against the apartment door.

It’s easy to grow lost to the touch, to the gentle hands caressing faces and sides, the simple act of the connection breathing something bold and large into life, of which texting never could. With each passing second, the thought and subject of dinner temporarily fades, pushed aside as a familiar brand of thrill falls perfectly into place. Kissing is a simple act and yet it continuously offers up an overpowering and pulsating thunder of desire which is met with open arms of affection. They’re both skilled kissers, on equal footing in a lot of ways, and maybe the sentiment echoes with a delicacy; a delicacy of seduction and balanced sensuality.

Maggie eases her lips away, a few moments later, tilting her head until it rests against the supporting wood of the door. She’s out of breath and for good reason, too. This make out feels a little weighty for pre-dinner on a Monday night. Gazing into her girlfriend’s eyes, Maggie spends a few seconds as she catches herself – her own recognisable shape and form - reflected in the increasingly dilating pupils of Alex’s eyes. They pause for breath, briefly, hands holding one another close, on hips and on waists, the touch providing steady warmth of security. It feels like they haven’t seen each other in days; a misguided thought - an exaggeration - because in reality, it’s only been a day. One day.

The weekend had been passed by with shared drinks sipped in the dark corners of different bars and Alex had grinned non-stop because she had finally – _finally_ – convinced Maggie to try out the pinball bar she had first suggested all those months ago. It had felt like an apt and fitting thing to do, a conclusion of sorts, to step foot in the pinball place which had first been proposed when Alex had found herself dancing precariously around the things she had been in denial about. Like the concept of Maggie dating a blonde woman – or women in general – and then when Maggie had been dumped by said blonde woman and how exactly those developments made her feel. The consuming bout of jealousy which had panged throughout her is remembered with a clear mind and fresh eyes. Maggie had greeted her then girlfriend on the street corner adjacent to the precinct; embracing the blonde with a kiss before continuing to grasp her hand, the cloud of jealously forming low and engulfing in the centre of Alex’s chest; feeling almost suffocating as she folded her arms before leaving the edge of the precinct for the night. A spiked heart rate had been the weathered storm when Alex had heeded the distinct words of ‘she dumped me’ uttered by the detective barely a few days later. There had been an endless rush of feelings, overpowering and almost drowning, resulting in the response of having to face them head on. Alex had swam to the surface, had gasped in the air she had denied herself. She came out.

They’re closer now, since those initial crime scene call outs and shared conversations and everything feels like it’s rounding in on them in a loop and concluding full circle; complete.

Maggie catches her breath, hands moving up from Alex’s sides to squeeze her girlfriend’s hips. She’s still leaning against the apartment door, holding herself up against the powerful waves of temptation; temptation that’s buzzing in loud and throbbing volumes to skip dinner and do other things; other things she knows Alex would very much enjoy and reciprocate. The thoughts and images echo around the room in an overpowering haze forcing Maggie to briefly close her eyes, hoping that the spiking feelings will eventually weaken and subside. Her eyes flicker open - a moment later - her gaze colliding with Alex’s increasingly flushing face. There’s something else, though, tugging away at her girlfriend’s expression. Alex’s smile appears numb, frozen, her eyes sparkly in the low light of her apartment, like her expression has been injected by the literal toxin of love.

Maggie breaks the silence, biting her bottom lip as she continues to caress Alex’s sides. "If that’s the welcome I get from now on, remind me to come over more often."

Alex grins, leaning closer, her body effectively pressed flush against her girlfriend’s. Her words shine bright, almost coy with proudness; a complimentary detail to her widening smile. "Like you need a reason."

Maggie teasingly quips something about being cocky before she murmurs the suggestion of skipping dinner; suggesting that they forgo it for "something else". Alex replies, wordlessly and almost instantly, by closing the gap between them again. The established closeness between them shifts as it evolves into a steal-your-breath-away make out session against the centre of the apartment door.

By some miracle – and it is a miracle - they make it to the restaurant.

Not without the remnants of creased shirts and unbuttoned henleys, however, the aftereffect that they’re trying their very best to smooth out - quite literally - as they stroll further down the sidewalk towards the central hub of the city. The atmosphere which greets them as they move through the restaurant entrance is vibrant and warm. They aren’t the only couple dining tonight but the spacious Italian is relatively quiet. The candle situated between them in the centre of the table flickers with a steady flame, licking up to enhance the calming ambience falling into place as they order their initial glasses of wine. They are, after all, officially celebrating the conclusion to last week’s bust in a setting which feels more fitting than the dive bar ever could. They gaze across at each other; grasping set menus as they puzzle over what to order and that’s when Alex’s eyes fall on a small detail; one which her gaze had missed back in her apartment.

"You’re wearing it." Alex says, moving her menu down until it’s flush and flat on the table, like she can’t actually believe what’s situated before her eyes, across the small distance of the table. "My necklace."

"It felt fitting." Maggie murmurs, smiling. She moves a hand away from the menu she’s holding to take the silver pendant between her fingers, measuring up the gift with a glint in her eyes. "For tonight."

Alex’s features crease into a smile as she leans across the table, the flame of the candle smearing the room with a relaxing haze of light. She isn’t exaggerating, though, the pendant falls fittingly into place over the crisp white of her girlfriend’s shirt. Alex reaches for her wine, fingers encasing her glass as she tells Maggie that she wears the pendant better than she ever did. They order food and fall into easy flowing conversation. Alex listens intently as Maggie recaps her day. She had spent her Monday interrogating a number of the Cadmus suspects from last week’s bust, updating Alex with developments in the case, namely the latest sighting of Lillian Luthor. It’s not all business, though, as they sip wine and talk; flirtatious words cast over a candlelit table with gently – and deliberately - bumped legs and lingering touches underneath.

The food is great, almost moan inducing, interwoven with a second glass of wine and preceded by a dessert bowl of tiramisu. Alex chooses that as her moment – when Maggie is one spoon away from the completion of her dessert – to voice the words which have been polluting her mind ever since their earlier make out had slowed. "Come back to my apartment." Alex suggests, carefully placing her glass down on to the table with a gentle clink. She’s holding her girlfriend’s gaze and the flickering candle light dividing them is no longer the only flame. Alex’s words aren’t posed as a question, more a statement, and most likely a fact if Maggie’s eyes are anything to go by. "After this."

The growing smile which her words receive in turn is conformation, is promise that Maggie is going to do exactly that – return hand in hand with Alex to her apartment - but there’s no denying the present and significant subtext the words hold. Tonight feels different, as if something has shifted – shimmered and fallen away – to land softly and perfectly at the edge of their feet. There’s a line now, shone in light, stepped on but not with hesitation, not that there had been a substantial amount of hesitancy present before. Eagerness has always been present, fluid, throughout every offered word met with flirtation, every connecting kiss, touch and caress. The shift in air coats Alex’s keenness with a familiar twinge of nervousness but it’s no longer all-consuming like it has been previously evident; it’s manageable, workable as if the feeling has been condensed to fit perfectly in the palm of her hands. She’s taken her first steps - boots landing in a confident stride on the imaginary line of intimacy - and Maggie is reflecting the same, offering up an extended hand in the form of glossy eyes and a smile which glimmers with equal awareness.

Maggie feels the shift, the ripple, as the room around them wavers. It feels natural, tonight, after the passing months because they’ve grown in a lot of ways. Everything ranging from conversations shared over competitive games of pool to introductory visits to childhood hometowns, to quiet moments experienced on date nights strolling around near silent parks. National City, Maggie reflects, has been the continuous backdrop as their relationship developed, shimmering from a negative into detailed colour.

They leave the restaurant, walking hand in hand as they weave throughout the city. The streets are cascading with shadows, gifted upon them by the falling darkness of night, dimly illuminated by hazy streetlamps and the headlights of passing cars. It’s on nights like this, especially, when Alex can fully appreciate the benefits to obtaining an apartment situated centrally in the heart of the city. They aren’t far from her block now as they walk and the building in question unfolds to stand in front of them in a way which is reminiscent of the emerging appearances of stark skyscrapers cutting throughout the Metropolis skyline. Alex’s hold on Maggie’s hand only gets stronger as they near closer, her entire body burgeoning with unrelenting excitement and giddiness.

As they slip inside through the entry door, Alex tugs Maggie – at speed - towards the elevator situated at the bottom of the corridor. She thumbs the call button, almost blindly, lost to the feeling of the warm hand laced together with her own; realising that the sparkly gaze being emitted by her girlfriend can only be drawn up and defined in the six letter word of desire. Maggie is grinning but there’s something else hanging behind her smile, tugging away heavy and with meaning, and Alex’s mind is too busy attempting to decipher what it is to realise that the elevator doors are drifting open. The lift shaft has been sitting on the ground floor all along.

The elevator dips as they step inside, Alex blindly thumbing a digit on the silvery panel to her right, before Maggie presses into her, lips meeting her own in a way which makes her legs grow weak as they lose all feeling. Alex feels the coldness of the lift shaft even through the material of her light jacket as her girlfriend eases her backwards against the rear of the small space, Maggie’s leather jacket bumping against her. The lift starts ascending with a faint hum as it rises up and the movement offers up a shade of surrealism, filtering Alex with the impression that she’s floating. Maggie rests her hands against her elbows as their lips continue to meet - enthusiastically and with emphasis - the connection somehow not enough.

Maggie tastes red wine and the faintest traces of tiramisu, smiling into the flowing kiss as the lift vibrates on its continued ascent. It isn’t long, however, before the sound falls away – lost to the steady haze clouding the confines of the elevator shaft - with a sharp 'ding' as they level up on Alex’s floor. The metal doors creak as they slowly part, the movement going ignored as they shift, continuing to kiss between delayed gasps for breath and moans for more. They’re on Alex’s floor now and the shared awareness is pulsating through them in steady shots of adrenaline; ones which are fuelled with even more giddiness. They’re only a few steps away from the apartment but even the thought of walking the short stretch feels like too much of a spreading gap.

Alex presses one final kiss to her girlfriend’s lips; the touch heavy with equal want and need as it gets concluded by a cool swipe of tongue. Her eyes flicker open, slowly, as her body fights to catch up, ever present to the growing developments of the night. Maggie’s smile shimmering back is all encompassing, enveloping; a complimentary feature to the soothing and caressing touches currently warming her sides. Holding each other’s gaze, eyes expectant with so much admiration and desire, Maggie laughs lightly as the noise of the shaft doors closing cuts through the air. She outstretches a foot just in time, though, before they get closed in and the doors slide apart in the automation of a mechanical reflex. Maggie teases a quip about "work night curfews" and Alex can’t help but playfully roll her eyes before she tugs her girlfriend from the elevator. ‘Curfew’ reads as subtext - an implicit meaning Alex is astutely aware of - and the glossy eyes reflecting back share the same strand of knowledge. Maggie knows exactly what she’s doing.

The door to Alex’s apartment greets them, illuminated in dim light, and Alex fumbles with her keys as she fishes them from the left hand pocket of her jacket. The key scrapes, sounding rusty, as it slides into place, the simple movement unfolding as if in slow motion, Alex hovering before her hand turns. Maggie is close, by her side, placing a gentle touch on her back and the effortless action has her body and mind on edge, like her senses have been heightened and enhanced to feel everything in rich, vibrant and sparkling colours. The lock gives way and Alex leads them inside.

The apartment keys rattle as they collide with the surface of the kitchen counter, Alex throwing them down with a scatter while Maggie closes the door. A soft click and a chink of metal sound as her girlfriend locks the door by turning the snib and Alex turns around. Maggie moves closer, step by step, until there’s no space left separating them, no distractions. There aren’t any lights on in the apartment and somehow that showers the room with yet another shade of intimacy. They can see each other, of course, but with the streaking shadows cutting throughout the room, emerges bright eyes and the darkness - if anything - highlights the features, draws them back to their purest source like fine chipped away diamonds, to the whites and brown pools of seemingly mini universes.   

Maggie searches Alex’s face as she reaches out to hold her girlfriend’s sides and stumbles upon the faintest trace of nervousness creasing into form. It falls into place in the centre of Alex’s forehead, stark in contrast to the desire which is present and vivid in the sharp and bright gleam of Alex’s eyes. It’s implicit – Alex’s apprehension – and barely in existence but Maggie finds herself quietly checking in as she assures her girlfriend that tonight they don’t have to do anything; that there’s no pressure - there could never be - but Alex shakes her head, no, and replies openly that she wants to; reassuring Maggie that she’s never felt more ready for anything in all of her life. The admission is sealed and reinforced with a creased smile followed up by a weighty gaze and Maggie finds herself shivering. It isn’t from the effects of cool air, though, because Alex’s apartment is growing steadily warmer by the passing seconds – and Alex has everything to do with it – it’s due to the effect of spreading goosebumps. Even with the addition of her leather jacket, still slung heavily across her shoulders, Maggie feels them appear - individually - one by one as they travel across her skin.

Alex’s jacket is the first fallen victim – followed closely up by Maggie’s – as they bridge the gap between them, kissing with dipping hands moving around to free and tug leather from shoulders. The motion simmers with an adept skill, ironically smooth for actions so hurried, and as their respective material scatters towards the floor, Alex finds herself grinning into the continuing collision of soft lips, giving herself over to the heaviness of the feeling, free falling. She pulls Maggie closer, hands moving to glide and slide through strands of her girlfriend’s sleek and glossy hair, lost to the feeling and movement. They share a slight stumble around as they move and twirl away from the edge of the kitchen island stretching a few metres across the floor, kissing with an unbreakable connection.

Alex’s hands are hurried as they slide from Maggie’s hair, gliding almost magnetically to the edge of her shirt while her girlfriend returns the same, hands dipping to cling on to and tug the material of her dark henley. Lips are now mixed together with tongue and as Alex pushes closer, deepening the flowing and multiple kisses, she feels a steady tug just above her waist. Maggie’s hands are gripping the material of her henley, now, and they temporarily press pause on their connecting kiss. Maggie draws her lips away, her attention moving to help free her girlfriend from the momentary obstacle placed between them. Alex closes her eyes as she raises her arms up, her henley being pulled over her head in an effortless blur. She just about manages to push a few strands of now displaced hair from her eyes before Maggie brings their mouths together again.

Kissing and intimacy go hand in hand and when the sentiment is placed in Maggie’s adaptable and very capable hands, it’s a dangerous concept. At least, Alex likes to think so. Their kiss is continuous, heavy with stunted gasps for breath and laced with sporadic swipes of tongue. It’s a flowing progression, the dance around they’re currently partaking in; the lips between teeth, the touching tongues. It’s electrifying, dizzy inducing, and Alex drinks it all in, every second. She feels the growing burn of her skin flick and zig-zag its way across soft paleness as she accidentally stands on the crushed material of her henley which now lies forgotten at her heels.

Alex follows every swipe and caress, every lingering touch of Maggie’s lips, her hands blindly snaking to find the centre of her girlfriend’s button up. She fails at first – Maggie’s lips are increasingly distracting with each passing second – but the kissing, if anything, guide her closer towards her goal; her own personal GPS system in the removal of her girlfriend’s button up. Alex’s fingers encase the buttons, kiss never breaking, as they slowly give way and pop in a smooth upward movement. Maggie’s shirt is open now and Alex musters just enough strength to pry her lips away mid kiss for her eyes to flit down and capture the sudden addition of an exposed chest and a white bra. Alex’s gaze lingers for two seconds too long because Maggie rips the shirt away from her shoulders, dropping it towards the floor almost as quickly as they had moved across the floor. Alex pulls her girlfriend in by cupping her face as they kiss, heavily, feeling warm hands sneak around her back. There’s a split second of delay as Maggie’s fingers miscalculate the position of the strap but it’s not long before Alex feels the sudden tug and snap as her bra falls open and springs wide. Deciding to extend the same regard to her girlfriend, Alex shifts her hands towards her girlfriend’s back. As the material of the support falters and springs, Alex pulls her mouth away, becoming a blur of movement as she pulls the straps away on her shoulders, dropping her bra towards the floor. It’s barely a second later when the material of Maggie’s joins her own on the floor, her girlfriend using the brief interlude to lean down and kick her boots off. It’s probably a good idea and something Alex finds herself replicating in an almost mirror like effect. Henleys are now gone, button ups are gone, bras are gone, _boots_ are gone; all fatalities lost in the very loving war of intimacy.   

There’s a pregnant pause of silence, one that’s interwoven by the faint sound of a car passing in the distance of the streets far below and the mechanical ticking of the wall clock pinned high in the kitchen. There’s no space between them, hands reaching out to caress and move across every inch of skin that’s to be found on display. Alex closes her eyes when Maggie’s touch skims across the coolness of her abdomen, swallowing deeply when the touch drifts upwards to settle on the undersides of her breasts. The room sparks with familiarity, of a touch that has unfolded before, but it’s where the touch hasn’t been that’s the most goosebump inducing. Warm hands move up to palm her breasts, drifting across her nipples and the stimulation is there and gone in a second because Maggie’s hands fall away – slide – as they reach down towards the edge of her pants. There’s a tug and if Alex is looking to frame and rewind one particular moment from all of her life, she thinks she might’ve stumbled upon it. She aids her girlfriend in the removal of her pants, doubling with intoxication when Maggie’s hands land on her own, urging her to do the same. There’s a slight diversion on the same movement, however, because Maggie is wearing a belt, a tight, leather belt and if anything, Alex thinks the situation just got ten times hotter. Her hands hover across the material before she starts to unlatch the buckle and the weight of what’s eventually going to unfold passes over her skin in a warm sweat, hairs springing to stand erect at the back of her neck. The material is dislodged, quickly, Maggie moving to pull and kick the material away, leaving Alex blinking as her girlfriend stands before her in nothing but a pair of grey boxer shorts and the silver pendant which is clasped around her neck.

They’re both on equal footing in a lot of ways.

There’s the physical side of things; the boxer shorts and respective underwear and the rich expanse of contrasting pale and tan skin, even in the dark. But there’s also the figurative side, the talk of feelings and enveloping thoughts, and tonight, everything is aligned. The way Maggie’s eyes are shining in the dim apartment light, how Alex’s breathing is just heavy enough to mean something more and the way in which they stand, so close together, hands caressing seemingly endless spheres of soft skin.

Alex had always viewed the ‘kissing until you’re breathless’ concept as an exaggeration, an over statement, but now she understands it, realising that the remark is not to be glanced at with rolled eyes because it’s true – all of it - in its entirety. Their mouths connect again, smiling kisses which reinforce the knowing fact that tonight they’re crossing a line which they’ve only ever sailed close to. Alex’s touch is on her girlfriend’s back, caressing, before she alters the connection, inching her hands around to skim across a span of muscle; fingertips ghosting over the ridges of Maggie’s abs. The kissing is breathy and heavy when Maggie’s hands descend from their position on Alex’s chest to tug at the last distraction of material; Alex’s underwear. The touch is gentle, faint, but Alex feels it with a careful awareness and aids her girlfriend, shifting until the material is sliding towards the floor.

As Alex steps away from her fallen underwear, she pushes closer into Maggie as they backwards side step past her couch, moving across the floor as they near the bottom of the staircase below her bed. Somewhere between the progression, Maggie frees herself from her shorts, the grey material falling towards the floor in a blinding blur. She eases into Alex, kisses ever flowing as her girlfriend slowly manoeuvres backwards as they ascend the small staircase leading up to the bed.

Alex falls backwards across linen, gently, hyper aware of the growing developments of the night. The intimacy of the current situation shines bright, almost blinding because Maggie is sliding closer and into her body, crawling her way up as they shift in the centre of the mattress, across a soft comforter which is beginning to show its first signs of creases as it dips. Lips are on lips, connecting kisses which are anything but innocent as they shimmer into open mouthed stimulation and skin on skin contact. The motion fizzles with a warmth, an electricity, like particles of energy circuits are literally sparking into life as they dance across and consume endless stretches of skin.

When Maggie pulls her lips away, angling her head a little to the right, Alex becomes astutely aware of the ever increasing tempo and the rate in which her heartbeat is thudding almost violently in the centre of her chest. Her eyes are shut tight and she’s breathing through spreading smog which is full of lust and stimulation. Maggie’s breathing mixes together with her own before Alex feels her girlfriend shift, her lips pressing delicate and wet kisses to her jaw before they smoothly advance in descent.

Alex’s hands are on Maggie’s back now, trailing faintly across the familiar outlines and definitions of taut muscles, her girlfriend wearing the effects of a well utilized gym membership. They can’t hold each other any closer – it’s not physically possible - and as Alex extends her head back, hair pushing into the soft fluffiness of a pillow, the current scenario is everything she has dreamed of and more. There’s substantial heat growing – and glowing - from the established closeness between them, the interlinked bodies and the naked skin. Then there’s Maggie’s mouth, trailing dangerously closer towards Alex’s neck, soft lips teasing the corruption of skin, only enhanced by the delicate hands currently caressing her sides, drifting lower; lower because they’re headed in a set direction and the realisation can’t unfold rapid enough. The last few weeks have been building up to this; building and developing on an already established intimacy, extending it in sometimes small steps but never quite crossing the line. It’s reached its conclusion, now, a well-earned and patient one.

Maggie’s lips are on Alex’s neck, kissing that’s heavy with want and promising something more. There are the bold beginnings of a hickey slithering perfectly into place as the motion alters, shifting with added pressure and the pleasure emitted by the action is immediate and overpowering. Alex extends her neck, head lolling back, because the attack on her neck is travelling its way down and around her veins in a relentless flow. The room is hot, now, sticky, the dark ambience and implicit echo of light seemingly growing as sensuality filters high in the air making Alex hyper aware of three things happening simultaneously;

There's a travelling, itchy tickle which is trailing down her body as Maggie pulls her lips away from her reddening neck, her girlfriend shifting as she slides lower, like Maggie is actively writing in invisible ink across her body but with the movement of her hair in place of any physical pigment. Maggie's hands and fingers are walking coolly across every divided inch of her body; scaling across her nipples to the undersides of her breasts but it's the final touch which is contributing the most to Alex's shudders of slowed breaths and the constant electricity which shimmers its way down to curl her toes.

Maggie's lips press against Alex’s abdomen before her tongue darts out to lick where the touch has existed mere seconds before and the action is reminiscent of something out worldly because Alex feels like she's actually floating; like she has physically left her life in National City behind. As Maggie shifts lower, Alex becomes increasingly aware of the tiny pools of wetness dabbed sporadically across her chest and abdomen, the trail which her girlfriend’s movement has left behind. She breathes out a heavy moan as Maggie kisses across her skin, lips landing and sucking gently, hands scraping up to cup her breasts, shivering when she feels the sudden jolt of arousal zigzagging its way to her core as it shoots another twinge to her toes. Maggie's hands graze upwards and over, palming Alex’s breasts faintly, as her mouth rests just above her girlfriend’s navel. The touch is there, disappearing not a second later, and Alex feels herself breathing hard in her best attempt to suppress a moan. She's never felt this turned on before, has never felt this heady toxin of arousal and intoxication engulf the wholeness of her soul, taking a firm grasp of her body in such a satisfying way.

The signs and effects of pleasure are present and bright. Alex’s neck is extended back, slowly being absorbed by the pillow, as her closed eyes face the ceiling, breathing pattern stunted as Maggie scales lower. Alex can feel a trail of goosebumps dancing across her skin upon the realisation at just how firm her nipples have grown to be in the rich stimulation followed up by an appreciative spark of arousal that travels consecutively towards her core; her core where Maggie is now resting above; because Maggie's tongue is right there, her grip growing tight and firm around her thighs.

Alex has lost count of the times she has pictured this moment, day dreamed this very scenario, and her eyes flicker open because she wants to prolong the image, attempting to stay focused. It's only seconds later, however, before Alex’s eyes have shut tight once again – the provocation too overwhelming – and she’s sinking further into the comfort that’s being provided by her pillow. At no point in Alex’s casual - and not so innocent - daydreams did she ever imagine that it could - no, would - feel like this. Maggie's tongue is all smooth and cool and as she shifts, Alex feels herself unconsciously rocking against the touch and she must be doing something right because Maggie grips her thighs with added emphasis and pulls her in closer. Alex's arousal spreads and quadruples when she realises Maggie's tongue is swirling, gathering up the pooling arousal from within, offering up the impression that her soul is being drank in from below.

Maggie starts slow, introducing the feeling by a gentle lick and swipe of her tongue. It’s a different offering of pleasure and Alex welcomes it by an airy gasp and hiss for more. Her girlfriend is all tease; however, as Maggie takes her time, making sure that the development isn’t too much before she furthers her exploration. Alex’s hands rest by her side, gripping the comforter in an attempt to ground herself.

The grip against Alex’s thighs only increases her arousal and yearning and Maggie’s tongue is in receipt of those two very things. A haze forms between them as it all unfolds, as the apartment echoes with breathy pants and mustered moans for more. Alex gets lost to the feeling of her girlfriend situated below, her tongue firm and steady, almost relaxing as it builds in grace.

Maggie pushes closer, nuzzles in deeper and Alex feels the development unfold with a sudden gush of dampness and a pleasurable convulse. The licking is constant, gentle but relentless as it gradually builds, shifting in motion as Alex arches up from the mattress of the bed. It builds and builds - slowly and then fast - the connection almost becoming too much. The faint hint of climax emerges in a swirling cloud and buzzes past Alex’s navel, her body and breath suddenly stuttering in unison. She’s close to the edge of receiving an unknown pleasure, to the edge of satisfaction, and her grip on the cover below only gets tighter, white knuckles emerging in the low light.

Maggie feels it too, senses the urgency and closeness of pleasure walking its way into light, and she does something to enhance the spark, alight the already burning flame cascading between them. She flicks her tongue a little harder, adeptly emphasised, as her lips encase the root to the strongest form of pleasure, and her girlfriend stutters, arched back arching even further as a pleasurable moan cuts through the air.

Maggie works Alex through it, her tongue drawing back to its initial gentle flicks until her girlfriend’s back finally lands, once again, flush on top of the comforter. She pulls out gently, shifts until she's kissing a steady trail full of reassurance over her girlfriend’s body, across her stomach then upwards towards her chest until she's effectively hovering over Alex. Maggie wipes her chin with the back of a hand and licks the remnants of a newly uncovered taste away with a careful swipe of tongue. Alex‘s chest is rising and falling at a steady tempo, her eyes taking a few minutes to adjust before they flicker open and when they do, Maggie can only smile. The waves of a recently partaken orgasm are floating vibrantly in her girlfriend’s eyes, brightly shining with a gleam, and that isn’t taking into consideration the dopey grin emerging into form on Alex’s face. Tiny droplets of sweat are captured forging against her forehead, the heat of their bodies melding together in calculated warmth because they're so closely positioned.

Alex isn't solely aware of her heart which is beating at two speeds too fast against the ribs in her chest but also of Maggie's. Her body has been hit with euphoria - her mind even more so - and Alex feels like the room and world has slid away, faltered, stripping it back to just the two of them; here and alone in her apartment. Her eyes flicker to a close at the thought, of the concept and daydream. It’s a very nice reflection.

Maggie kisses her, hands caressing her sides, and Alex has no idea if it's a side effect of what has transpired to be because she feels the kiss from the point of contact at her lips in a steady buzz which travels all the way to edge of her toes. The kiss grows languid and slow before Maggie eases back, breathing heavy as she waits for Alex to open her eyes. The room falls into hums of gentle breathing, echoes of passing cars in the night ricocheting off the streets far below the window and balcony. The room is almost but not quite in near darkness, now. There's a faint streak of light which is pouring in from the balcony window and through the light curtains and Maggie thinks that the offering illuminates Alex's eyes for all that they are. They’re bright and sparkly when they flicker open, her growing smile seemingly frozen in a near permanent place because, as Alex will tell her later, they just did _that_. There's a spreading enthusiasm which is very present and raw on her girlfriend's face as Alex leans up from her pillow to locate her lips and Maggie smiles into the flowing kiss.

When the kiss eases, Alex lies back against her pillow, full of contentment as Maggie shifts to relax into her side. Their legs are interlinked, locked in a lazy but comforting way. Maggie's fingers are trailing up Alex’s sides, a ghost of a touch which her girlfriend feels in the heaviest of ways. It's tantalising and mesmerising all at once, like the flash of a blur, an oncoming storm. The room shimmers with enveloping intimacy, the eeriness of the night drawing the only noticeable sound - the shared and gentle breaths - prominently into the foreground. They're both naked, a little sweaty and a lot hot, as they breathe in the close proximity and the soft warmness of skin.

"Was that as good for you as it was for me?" Maggie asks and her voice is tinged with breathlessness and equal teasing. She pauses, wetting her lips with a brief swipe of her tongue before she leans up to gaze into Alex's eyes. "I'm thinking yes."

Alex sways, feeling her body flush and spike with heat because Maggie's voice is hoarse, a tone croakier than before, and Alex all but moans when she realises why that is because her mouth has just been there, below. Alex’s cheeks crease into a lazy smile and from the outset, she looks a little tipsy, more so drunk, but there's no sipped spirit in sight. It's a lazy smile, almost numb as it forms in position, but it's everlasting. Alex's eyes ripple with euphoria, remnants of the pleasure she's experienced ever present and shining and for a moment, her mouth grows dry. She shuts her eyes as a warm steady glow sweeps throughout her, travelling and flushing throughout her veins, as it echoes the fast beating of her heart. Alex is, quite literally, speechless.

"You have so much still to discover." Maggie murmurs, teasingly, drawing circles against Alex's abdomen as she presses her lips, gently, against her girlfriend's left shoulder.

"Well, lucky for you..." Alex breathes, finally finding her voice. Her words are quiet, slow, numbed by the same strand of lazy pleasure currently circling her expression. Alex’s words, however, are laced with enthusiasm and they only hint at more. "I learn fast."

Her reply is received by a raised eyebrow, Maggie's lips hovering closer towards her girlfriend’s. The words sound like a promise, a vocal signature inked by words and there's a present weight supporting the statement and it doesn’t take long for Maggie to learn exactly how much of a fast learner Alex is because it happens almost instantly. The raised eyebrow Maggie had cast in response had been an effective catalyst in propping themselves towards the second part of what looks to be a long night.

They’re kissing, lazily for a few minutes, because Alex is still awash with the effects of her recent brush with a very strong dosage of pleasure. The connection is all tongue and soft, brushing lips and Alex thinks she can taste herself on her girlfriend’s lips. The apartment shines with sensuality, with exuded sexuality, as spare pillows are pushed away, cast aside towards the floor as the air between them shifts. Somewhere between kissing, Alex flips their positions around, sliding on top of Maggie as she rolls her girlfriend over until her back is flush on the bed and her hands are resting against her waist. The grip is tight and if Alex is being perceptive – which she is – Maggie is impressed by the development. There’s something powerful and raw inducing about straddling her girlfriend, and naked. It evokes an immersing giddiness within Alex and she loses herself for a few moments.

Maggie's words are warm when she mentions a so called ‘lost jurisdiction’ and Alex swears she can hear the crease of dimples fall into place before she witnesses them form. Maggie grins, blinking as she grasps her girlfriend’s waist. "That lasted long."

"I think I lost all jurisdiction the second I laid eyes on you." Alex admits, honest, her hands drifting to touch the very bare skin beneath her. It’s all soft and smooth as it brushes with her fingertips. Alex scrunches her face a little, tilting her head with a dorky smile which is brimming with admiration and affection. She can’t help but gloat a little, shimmering with proudness. "Which, by the way, is single-handedly the best thing I ever did."

Maggie laughs lightly and a hearty chuckle filters through the air before it subsides when Alex drifts closer, lips moving in towards her neck, descending with enthusiasm. Her girlfriend’s fingers trace the shape and outline of her silver pendant, Alex teasing her neck with open mouthed kisses and swipes of her tongue. The touch is having its desired effect because Maggie’s eyes close over, almost rolling back, as she surrenders herself over and into the absorbance of unmitigated pleasure. Alex’s lips are present on Maggie’s neck for the following minutes, delicately inflicting a hickey with adept skill, before the touch shifts, scaling lower, as her girlfriend begins to place messy and wet kisses above, under and through the valley of her breasts. The progression is met with deep inhalations and gasps for breath as Alex’s mouth descends lower. Maggie’s skin crosses and dances with a flowing current of static energy at every sensation, at the feeling of Alex’s lips brushing against the ridges of her abs, toe curling in the deadliest of ways, while her girlfriend’s hands reach up, palming and thumbing the mounds of her breasts.

Between the developments, Maggie’s hands drift away from Alex’s hips as they shift, Alex descending dangerously closer towards where she desires, hovering half an inch above her core. Maggie is crossing with sweat now, the heat feeling sticky and turbulent, as closely as they’re positioned together. She can only inhale and crane her head back further into her pillow as she feels Alex’s initial touch in the form of an experimental swirl, her girlfriend reaching out to gather the physical effects of arousal pooling from within.

The touch is gentle, careful, moving slowly as if Alex is mesmerised by the source of what she has uncovered at her fingertips but the emitted awe of the scenario soon evaporates as she slips a coated finger in. Her gaze drifts upwards towards Maggie as the initial sensation is followed up by the addition of a second, immediately feeling the effect the advance is unleashing on her girlfriend. Alex eases through Maggie’s folds; stumbling upon a sensation she’s never experience before. The smoothness is all cool - wet - only doubling as Alex presses in and circles.  

Maggie is gasping now, her back arching off the bed, Alex’s touch met mid-way by a breathy gasp and a strangled whine for more. It’s a little experimental at first but Alex knows what she’s doing. She’s done her research; has those particular pages still corrupting her laptop browsing history but most importantly, they’ve talked about it; talked about sex, sometimes quietly between relaxed moments of silence in their respective apartments. Maggie was pretty open about the topic and her experiences while Alex was a little nervous – quiet – until her girlfriend had assured her that lack of experience was nothing to be ashamed of and, if anything, was actually something to actively look forward to and enjoy. It meant that the developing intimacy between them would be the very definition of the sentiment, developing gradual and slow, new.

It’s no longer gradual or slow, however, because Alex’s circling fingers are shifting to rub and the feeling exists solely of pressure, building a steady beat and rhythm towards the peak of pleasure which had showered across her body a brief span of time ago. Maggie’s hands are clawing into the comforter, scrunching the covers in motion, as the pressure continues. She’s breathing heavily now, the stimulation pleasurable but somehow not enough, like it’s just a fraction of a second misaligned. Maggie gets her desired wish not a moment later though because the misalignment gets aligned.

Alex doubles her touch and twists, digging down. The pleasure it filters and pushes throughout Maggie is automatic, natural in progression, and Alex feels her girlfriend’s body convulse from the bottom to the top, feels Maggie’s breathing stutter and stop before the reaction is followed up by a thick gasp and concluded by a moan, further arousal dripping down to coat her resting fingers. Maggie's breathy pants and moans are an effective catalyst, an addictive symphony of sound which falls upon Alex's ears. She wonders, briefly, if sex is meant to feel this satisfying, this pleasurable, because there's a steady energy taking hold and control of her body in search of winning out multiple climaxes of pleasure from her girlfriend.

Maggie’s body is numbed almost completely, her mouth and jaw now locked by a for longing and blissed-out expression, and Alex digs deeper, applies the exact amount of needed pressure and the apartment situated around them cracks like a mirror, splintering into large shards as it appears to fall away. They’re connected now, bridged by the mutual entangling of gifted pleasure and moans, of skin that’s been burned and corrupted by the most mesmerising of touches. All Alex can feel is Maggie - entirely - like she’s got a hand encasing the richness of her soul as her girlfriend climaxes.

Alex rests her fingers firmly in place, shivering at the feeling of the soft squeeze of her girlfriend as Maggie absorbs and inhales her orgasm. She gazes up to witness the scenario in full colour, drinking in the bliss and the sparkly white shimmer which is unfolding directly from Maggie’s eyes. Alex shifts a little, easing her girlfriend through her first deposit of pleasure. Maggie’s hair has grown wavy now, natural waves creasing into place due to the continuing advances of her girlfriend and the fact that she’s grown a little sweaty. Her chest rises and falls, steadily, her breathing remaining a little short, not entirely ironed out. It’s still heavy and breathy, mirroring the purest rims of her darkening eyes and the shimmery gleam reflecting from her skin. The bliss reverberating around her body is flush with heat and as naked as they currently find themselves. A brief minute of silence falls on the room, only broken intermittently by the muster for breath and the echo of unfolded pleasure.

Alex’s fingers slide from within and Maggie’s eyes lock onto her girlfriend as they absorb the sight of Alex swiping her fingers with post-sex hair against the centre of her abdomen, before she crawls up and falls into her side. It feels like they’ve done this before because the movement feels natural, familiar, like pre-destined pieces falling correctly into place. Alex angles her head and kisses Maggie, lazily, feeling the faint taste of arousal filter across her lips. The kiss is languid, almost sloppy, and a promise; a physical reassurance that tonight, after officially cementing their relationship over creased covers and pushed away pillows, is only the beginning.

They drift apart, eventually, and Maggie closes her eyes as she feels Alex's breath gently ghosting against her skin as her girlfriend inches into her side, Alex cuddling close as she moves to rest just below her neck. The events of the night replay in Maggie’s mind frame by frame, second by second, and that’s not to say that the night is over, it isn’t. She sees herself with Alex in her cloud of thoughts, kissing against the apartment door, sees herself reaching out for Alex’s hand as they stepped out onto the street below, pre-dinner. It feels like the evening was a prelude, a perfectly timed setup in producing the position they currently find themselves in, tangled legs against warm skin and remnants of heavy kissing sparking into life. The comforter beneath them has grown warm with shifting skin and moving bodies and the night, Maggie thinks, isn’t just great. It’s perfect.

 

* * *

 

It's the middle of the night and they should be sleeping. They should be but they’re not. Somewhere between the explorations of the forged intimacy, the hours spent lost in the warm intensity of soft skin and other more pleasurable ventures, time had dissolved.

The night has forged a connection Alex has never experienced before, extended towards her with the most gentlest of hands, pleasure thrown upon her in two very contrasting of ways. There's the very literal definition of the euphoric almost white light effect which is thrown upon her whenever Maggie does that - the magical touch with her tongue or her fingers - but on the other balance, there's the feeling she receives when she returns the same and Alex isn't sure which one she prefers. They're both continuous and all consuming. The whole giving and receiving thing had at one time appeared as a meagre concept thrown upon Alex, not that she had ever enjoyed the act pre-sexuality discovery.

Tonight was different. Tonight Alex had grown lost to a world, submerged fully into a scenario where the only woman in existence was the one shifting beneath her, with warm hands that felt like they were caressing across every inch of skin, as Alex’s lips had descended to a more pleasurable place. This – tonight - was making love and the very definition of the word. So it isn’t at all surprising why they’re both a little fatigued. Their eyes are barely open although they aren't strictly asleep, lazy smiles settling permanently with long-lasting forms of euphoria.

It's the middle of the night and they've been talking quietly for the past hour, with the slow ticking of the clock in Alex’s apartment as the only sound punctuating the pauses in between. Their eyes had adjusted to the darkness hours ago when they had first fallen across the linen they now find themselves wrapped underneath. They're tightly entangled together, Maggie resting into Alex's back as they lie on their sides, Maggie’s head and chin tucking perfectly into position just above her girlfriend's neck. Their hands are wrapped together, fingers laced as skin covers skin and the position can only be spelled out to form the literal definition of intimacy.

Alex feels Maggie shift behind her, wavy strands of dark hair falling tickly against her back and shoulders. There's a lot of weight behind the pressed kisses to warm collarbones and shoulders. It's a silent check in; a reassurance that tonight’s developments have emerged as both meaningful and real. Tonight happened, unfolded in the most natural of ways and now Alex wonders how it had ever been possible to navigate the preceding weeks without the advancement unfolding sooner. Maybe it had been a slight misstep on her part but then again, maybe it hadn't. It felt right - natural – for everything to have happened tonight and they might still have work in the morning but the faint thought of returning to the daily grind just falters and falls away against the warm comfort they find themselves in

"You know, I’ve thought of a thousand ways about how tonight would happen and none of them-" Alex pauses to breathe out the moment in between, thinking in the brief silence; thinking about every colour and detail of the night, of Maggie’s eyes when she done _that_ , about the heat that spread naturally between them, the warmth she can feel like a second skin underneath the comforter. "None of them came close to this."

"You’re good on the ego, Danvers."

Alex snorts, laughing lightly, as her girlfriend clings to her, tighter, Maggie seemingly exaggerating her point. It’s a dangerous potent; how much the simple action makes Alex want to forgo sleep and stay awake for the remainder of the night stroke forever. Pillow talk is a fitting way to welcome in the early hours of the morning, gentle murmured words cast over creased sheets of linen and cascading pillows. It offers up a nakedness to be yourself, to speak words and for them to be absorbed with only love and patience, no matter how crazy or absurd the words form unspoken in your head. The comfort is goosebump inducing and Alex finds honest words falling from her lips as quickly as the bumps are spreading across her skin.

"I'm so glad I met you." Alex says, honest with admission. Maggie's lips fall against her collarbone and Alex reacts at the touch with a shiver before her girlfriend inches back, arms still wrapped around her body. Maggie, however, can't stop herself from quipping something about how ‘good sex changes everything’ delivered with a light laugh and a warm squeeze of hands. She's only teasing, of course, but there's something nice about knowing that even when Maggie is showing signs of being fatigued – and for good reason - her retorts are ever awake and sharp. "But seriously, Maggie, I am. I've never- I've never done this with anyone before, had a lasting relationship, one with meaning." Alex shifts, turning onto her side as she moves closer, now facing her girlfriend in the dark. Her hair feels messy, strands strewn as they fall against her cheeks, crimped against her forehead; a side effect to the flowing progression of the night. "I’ve never slept with anyone, had _sex_ with anyone I’ve been attracted to; anyone who mattered."

The confession unsettles a deep pang of sadness within Maggie and she can only offer a weak smile; one which is emitted with unvoiced heaviness, speaking mass volumes of which words could never come close to. "It used to scare me." Alex continues, briefly glancing down. "Being intimate. Being… _vulnerable_."

"You came out to me, Alex." Maggie offers, in an attempt to highlight a moment where her girlfriend’s vulnerability had been tackled head on with the strongest form of bravery. She reaches out, fingers ghosting down the smoothness of Alex’s cheek. "In a bar full of aliens and you weren’t scared."

"I wasn’t scared." Alex’s eyes widen with honesty, an almost ‘are you kidding’ face falling into place on her expression. "I was _terrified."_

Maggie laughs, closing her eyes, fingers still caressing Alex’s cheek. "But you still did it, Alex. You came out."

"That’s the one moment in my life I’ll never forget." Alex inhales as her girlfriend’s touch drifts away to rest against her arms, briefly wondering if Maggie can feel the heat of burning skin as her fingertips trail mesmerizingly up and down. Alex almost forgets her train of thought, lost to the hypnotic sensation, before she continues. "You just sat there, across from me, with your calming words and encouraging eyes, and I’d never felt as… safe before. Like, here I was, saying these words; words that had never crossed my mind and they were heavy – _intimidating_ – but they felt right. They fell into place. You gave me the strength, the acceptance; a silent smile which said you “got” it and you did, Maggie, you did. You _get_ me and that no longer scares me like it did at the start because I- I want you to get me." Alex’s eyes are glinting now, in the dark, the words in the room illuminating them with the purest forms of honesty; honesty which is shimmering directly back, reflecting in the browns of Maggie’s eyes. "I want everything with you. The morning coffee and the nights like this. I wanna make you double toasted bagels - which, _gross_ – over cartons of orange juice. I want all of you. When you’re happy, when you’re sad." Alex scrunches her face, tilting her head with a reassuring smile. "Not that I want you to be sad, I don’t. I just… I wanna experience everything with you."

Alex’s words are admitted with emotion, dripping and heavy with honesty, and Maggie is a little lost for words. It’s somehow fitting that her girlfriend would choose post-sex as her time to deliver a weight so careful and gentle, over crinkled sheets and crushed pillows.

"Then it’s a good thing I’m not going anywhere." Maggie murmurs, leaning up as she tugs Alex closer until they’re almost but not quite kissing. Lips are hovering, being teased with cool puffs of breath; a brief but interesting wager to see who will break first. ‘Plenty of time to play catch up, right?’ Maggie says, lips so close it’s actually a crime. She trails a touch over and across Alex’s arms, eventually coming to settle on her girlfriend’s sides. "Well, until work in the morning."

"Let’s call in sick."

"One night and that’s all it took?" Maggie teases, sensing that the victory of withholding on her advances emerging closer into light. Alex’s words were urgent, uttered at such a speed and laced with the overpowering intoxication of a sensuality she’s worked up a steady appetite for.

"Are you calling me _easy_ , Sawyer? Because if you were…"

A lingering moment overhangs with a steady sense of anticipation building coherently in the air. Maggie’s eyes have closed over now as she submerges herself into the situation and the feeling of holding Alex so close but not quite close enough. She feels Alex slowly attempting to draw her lips away but the magnetic pull is too strong – over powering – and their lips can only linger, bumping together briefly. Their breathing is heavy, somehow suspended from all corruption of fatigue, and as Maggie shifts against the mattress, the unspoken wager finds its winner.

Spoiler alert: it’s Alex who breaks first.

 

* * *

 

It’s early. It’s morning. The details emerge a little hazy in Alex’s sleep stained existence but she thinks it’s morning. She stirs awake, gently, as she opens her eyes. The bright rays of early morning hit her in almost painful immediacy, reminiscent of when you’ve just stepped outside the comforting darkness of a movie theatre. There’s no theatre present, though, and no movie, just the shape and warmth of the woman who is lying next to her. Maggie is still asleep, her breath falling soft and calming as her chest gently rises and falls and the sight is fast becoming one of Alex’s favourite things to wake up to. Maggie's hair is displaced, scattered across the fluffiness of her pillow as she lies on her side facing in towards Alex, protective arm outstretched and draped across her girlfriend’s abdomen. The scene before her eyes is perfect and Alex is extremely thankful she awoke before her alarm had sounded to bear witness to her girlfriend’s soft and sleepy expression supplemented by gentle breathing. Alex is smiling so hard at her girlfriend, she worries her excitement and giddiness will wake Maggie up. Her gaze lingers for a few more minutes as she attempts to reduce and still her movement. Waking Maggie up is the last thing Alex wants to do so she lies back against her pillow, closing her eyes as she gifts herself a moment to process.

There’s creased sheets surrounding her and messy hair. There’s growing heat found beneath the comforter and it’s overpoweringly hot, so much so Alex’s skin is burning. There’s two bodies wrapped up under the softness of sheets; two very naked bodies and Alex finds her eyes drifting open to check that the world around her is grounded and real; that she’s definitely lying next to her girlfriend in the bed she had once believed to be too big for one. With two, however, with Maggie, it fits just fine.

Alex glances down, eyes shifting as they move across the loose scattering of clothes zig-zagging their way across her apartment. It’s a sort of gingerbread trail, she reflects, clothes cast away with hurried hands and lingering fingers; a messy trail; a beautiful messy trail and an aftereffect which clouds the room with brief black and white re-runs of the night which bled into the early hours of the morning.

Maggie stirs from sleep ten minutes later, shifting by Alex’s side as her eyes flicker open. The awareness of their close proximity seeps through the warm pores of her skin, blossoming with afterglow. Maggie’s gaze falls on Alex’s as her girlfriend greets her with a hoarse and mumbled "hey you", the expression cast with a flowing grin and spreading smile.

Maggie’s following smile is so encompassing the motion springs into her cheeks with an ache. They crease with dimples, her grin displaying shiny teeth which glint against the fresh breeze of morning. The sparkle of light sneaking its way into and throughout the apartment is just implicit enough to fall bearable on sleepy eyes.

"Hey yourself." Maggie says, holding her smile. Alex responds by drifting closer, the comforter hitching as it inches downwards, revealing bare shoulders and plains of contrasting skin tones. It feels felicitous, the bridging of lips and mouths, a welcoming way to be greeted in good morning. Kissing soft and slow in a reduced tempo, the apartment shimmers with ease and relaxation. It’s still early. They’ve got time.

When the comfort pauses temporarily a brief span of time later, Alex finds herself murmuring something about grabbing a shower. They’re still wrapped up in the warmth of each other, interlocked under linen sheets, but time is evaporating at a steady rate; work emerging as a vague concept they mutually don’t want to think about.

"Is that an invitation?" Maggie asks, in response to Alex’s remark about a warm, hot shower and even though her words are emitted with flirtation and equal teasing, the idea is incredibly tempting.

"Something tells me we wouldn’t get much showering done if we did that."

"All the more reason to." Maggie assures. "Save water. It's good for the environment."

"You do know you’re taking your whole ‘living green’ mentality too literally, right?" Alex says, teasing her girlfriend with wide eyes and a brief, chaste kiss. She pulls back, gazing into her girlfriend’s eyes and grinning at the thoughts currently whirring around her mind at the suggestion of a shared shower. Alex composes herself, slightly impressed that she manages to free herself from the tangling and winding arms of temptation. Alex is the voice of reason in the current situation but maybe that’s a bad thing. Maybe she’s meant to give into temptation. She bites her bottom lip in a bid to stop herself from doing something else. "We’ve got less than an hour before we need to get to work."

Maggie grins as her girlfriend leans back. "Not a no." Alex dissolves into a grin as she agrees. It wasn’t a no. There’s deliberation, a brief pause of silence which filters with possibility and suspense, lingering between them. "It wasn’t a yes either." Maggie adds, beaming. A beat. "So… next time?"

"Definitely next time.

Alex postpones her shower for another few minutes, forgoing it to immerse herself in the morning after, in a sensual comfort where lips are soft and touches linger. When she eventually slides from the bed, Maggie sighs with satisfaction (but maybe there’s a flicker of disappointment mixed in too) and tugs the comforter up to cover her chest. She follows Alex’s naked form as it crosses down the staircase and quips a comment to her girlfriend about the ‘riveting views’ on display in her apartment; learning immediately that even pre-breakfast and pre-work Alex Danvers cannot avoid blushing.

Alex’s parting words to Maggie as she slides towards the bathroom, grabbing fresh clothes and a towel in the process, is that she can borrow something to wear from her dresser because as Alex points out - as she steps over fallen victims from last night - Maggie needs fresh clothes. "Top drawer, to the left." Maggie hears echo from the bathroom, her girlfriend’s words followed up by the sound of the shower being switched on and the sudden noise of water hissing.

Maggie lies in the middle of the bed as she listens to the tone of falling water as Alex showers. She feels a little tired, a little dark circled around the eyes as she shifts, deciding to move from the mattress and surprise Alex with coffee. The coldness of the apartment floor meets Maggie’s bare feet and if she wasn’t awake before, she certainly is now. She drifts across the floor, descending the small staircase as she locates the dresser which houses her temporarily clothes. Everyone has a drawer in their dresser which is bursting at the seams with tees and nightwear wedged forcefully into the confined space and almost always consisting of rarely worn items, and it looks like Maggie has found Alex’s.

Maggie’s hands leaf through tee after tee before her movement ceases when her hands grasp the material of an orange t-shirt. She tugs it gently from the drawer, sizing it up as she holds it out in front of her, eyes taking in the decal. It’s not something she would normally picture Alex wearing – the colour is too bright, the slogan too corny - which is probably why Maggie had found it tucked away, forgotten and unloved at the bottom of the drawer. She pulls it on and slides across the floor to go make coffee.

Maggie finds mugs in all the usual places, finds the coffee pot where it’s always placed; a clean cut domesticity that feels right. Maggie twirls around the kitchen with ease, with practice, waiting patiently for the coffee pot to brew before sliding towards another cupboard to grab a sugar bowl. Somewhere between all of these developments, the sound of the shower stops, Alex shuffling like she was getting dressed with the bathroom door practically open.

The crisp smell of fresh coffee pollutes the apartment in its entirety. Maggie lines up two mugs as she grasps the coffee pot, pouring the hot liquid when Alex steps into the room. She’s dressed now, in a tank top and light pants, pausing in her movement adjacent to the seater.

"You’re wearing my t-shirt." Alex declares with slight awe and emphasis. Maggie’s pick from her dresser is apt and bright. The decal of ‘Hello Sunshine’ feels like the most appropriate terminology in response to her girlfriend’s radiant appearance; glittering as Maggie stands leaning over the kitchen island with aromas of poured coffee wafting around. The sight before Alex’s eyes – Maggie in orange – reflects on the room like a genuine sun-ray or maybe that’s just Maggie’s smile. There’s something rife with domesticity about the situation, Maggie pouring them coffee before work, and deep down Alex knows that this – the morning coffee complimented by baggy tees and bare legs – will grow to become a common occurrence.

"Yeah, is that okay?"

"That’s _amazing."_  Alex affirms, gravitating across the floor. ‘I mean, like, you’re in my apartment and it’s morning, and you slept in my apartment, and now you’re wearing my t-shirt and making coffee and I can’t believe this is happening’ Alex rests over the kitchen island, gaze firmly absorbing the fine details of Maggie’s wavy hair and infectious smile closely. "And everything coming out of my mouth is very cliché."

"It’s called being happy." Maggie tells her, leaning closer, her cheeks creasing with deepening dimples. Alex finds herself floating closer towards an easy flowing and mesmerising comfort which reads a lot like love.  "Get used to it, Danvers."

Drifting closer, their initial kiss is brief and chaste but lips linger. The connection flows heavy with yearning and when Alex’s eyes eventually flutter open when they ease apart, she proclaims that she is getting used to it; to being happy and everything the sentiment comprises of. The last few weeks – the months – have been the very definition of the word; consistently strengthening feelings of contentment and joyfulness interlinking date nights, conversations and other growing developments with grins and laughs and smiles of happiness.   

"I think I- I think I am getting used to it."

Maggie is leaning over the kitchen island, sobering up from the shimmering closeness when her gaze falls on the wall clock face. "Oh! We’re late for work."

"I don't care if I ever go to work again." Alex announces and she means every word. There’s conviction. Her words are honest, solid and meaningful. "I mean, can't we just quit?" she asks, sounding a little naïve, voicing her thoughts aloud with no pre-empt feelings of hesitation. "And stay here, in this apartment, forever?"

"I don't know about _forever_ …" Maggie is drifting towards her girlfriend, inching across the floor as she leaves behind mugs of coffee and sugar bowls. "But maybe we can just settle for the morning?’ ‘We could call in sick…"

Temptation strikes. 

 _"Maybe._ "

Temptation wins. 

"I've got the black lung." Alex announces, fabricating a cough with a closed fist, one which is deserving of an academy award and if not an Oscar definitely an Emmy.  

" _The black lung."_

It feels familiar; the flowing movement of backwards sidesteps drifting closer towards the bed as morning grows brighter by every connecting kiss. Maggie’s freshly poured morning coffee now sits cooling and forgotten on the counter as Alex falls upon creased linen and crinkled pillows. Maggie tells Alex – between the slow, tender collision of lips and the caressing touches of hands – that she’s created her own monster (Alex is, after all, forgoing work for the receipt of a recently uncovered pleasure. Workaholic Alex Danvers is skipping work) and the shared words are rich with teasing as they fizzle with promise. Maggie is, after all, kind of proud to be having such a positive effect in ‘corrupting’ her girlfriend’s work ethic. In fact, Maggie isn’t remotely sorry at all because sexually fulfilled is a very good look on Alex Danvers.

"After last night?" Alex says, breathlessly, pulling Maggie closer, lost to a cloudy haze of seduction and want. " _Yeah_. Yeah, you have."

Maggie’s hands drift to grip the edge of Alex’s tank top, kissing her girlfriend softly before she begins to pull the material up, up and away. The air in the apartment appears to splinter, crack and dissipate, much like the night before; Maggie finding herself once again in a scenario where it’s solely just the two of them. The air dries up and time slows; the room crossing with a familiar wave of heat, only doubling as the seconds tick past and merge into minutes.

They found each other. The statement falls upon them mutually at the same time, in the same moment, because they’ve found each other; found each other after years spent living parallel lives, walking across different sidewalks and riding a variation of subway stops, all in a bustling city which is home to thousands. It’s heavy, the realisation; the four simple words which punctuate the intimacy they’re both currently wrapped up in.

Maggie is pressing her lips against Alex’s abdomen, hands steadily caressing her girlfriend’s sides. There’s a lot of weight in the action, a lot of love, as Maggie’s lips linger, the motion causing Alex to inhale. She feels the touch shoot sparks of lightening towards her soul - zigzagging in a constant and flowing path - and she inhales the comfort, submerging herself deeper in its glow of warmth. It’s all encompassing - there’s no exaggeration - because it’s physically impossible for the feeling to be water downed. Maggie feels heat on the edge of her lips as she drags them away, feels Alex’s shifting, her girlfriend’s hands clawing downwards to pull and lift the tee she had borrowed less than an hour ago. It’s electrifying, the freewheeling motion which has settled into place between them. Maggie’s eyes darken as ‘hello sunshine’ is tugged over her head and pushed away, followed closely by the removal of Alex’s pants.

The shimmering haze of early morning is fully formed when they emerge, later, with crimped hair and uneven breaths. Lying in bed is gentle; a statement of fact which Maggie had temporarily forgotten. She’s so closely wrapped around Alex, they’re breathing is one continuous cloud. The act is comforting and overflowing with intimacy and as they shift beneath the comforter, Maggie finds herself holding her girlfriend closer. Alex fits so perfectly around her, her girlfriend’s hair messy and straggled in her post-sex haze. Maggie’s expression creases into a grin, a slightly lazy we-just-had-sex-again smile engulfing her face and she smiles so hard, her face aches. Alex is almost mirroring her in reflection, a seemingly blissed out glow colouring across her features, shimmering brightly towards her eyes.

Alex likes being held after sex and enjoys the comfort the hold provides, especially when the hold happens to be her girlfriend’s. Maggie’s hands are smooth as they glide up and down her skin, hypnotic as they enhance the blissed out state which is currently reverberating around and through every vein and artery in her heart. Alex can’t even begin to put into words what it finally feels like to get lost, wrapped up in another body because she enjoys it a lot - _a lot_ \- and maybe it’s still too early to say but the prospects of having an active sex life are looking very positive. She’s enthusiastic about the possibilities and the knowledge that the same scenario is going to play out on an endless number of occasions, all different in their own ways, and Alex can’t wait.

The connotations of the word ‘happy’ float, once again, to the forefront of Alex’s mind and contentment criss-crosses across her skin like an imprint on her soul. She feels happy in an ever flowing number of ways and now Alex understands the true backdrop the word – happy - holds because Alex feels something; something that isn't pain, that isn't so engulfing that it sticks in her chest, lodges deep in her rib cage, lost somewhere between her heart and her jugular. The twinge of feeling adrift and lost is no longer present, disappearing to be replaced by something heavy and meaningful, gifting a wholesome and welcoming shine of light to a life half lived.

There’s no longer the cold and hollow echoes of emptiness, of the loneliness Alex had grown so accustomed to throughout the passing years; through her college days spent with throbbing headaches and self-inflicted hangovers which faded to emerge as the dog days of her self-proclaimed gap year because Alex feels love now. Alex feels love and warmness, feels already creased linen grow increasingly more creased, feels shifting legs and pressed, wet kisses to soft lips, and feels Maggie Sawyer receptive in ways her mind is only beginning to comprehend, here, in the morning after.

Alex feels love and if that means skipping work for the morning or for the rest of the day?

Sign her up.


End file.
